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Truths  for  To-Day 


SPOKEN  IN  THE  PAST  WINTER. 


By  DAVID  SWING, 

Pastor  Fourth  Presbyterian  Church. 


CHICAGO; 
JANSEN,  McCLURG  AND  COMPANY. 

1874. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  m  the  year  1874,  by 

JANSEN,  McCLURG  &  CO., 
In  the  office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington. 


Knight  &  Leonard, 
Printers. 


OOE'TE]^TS 


SEEMOX  I. 

RELIGIOUS   TOLERATION,  OR   CHARITY. 

Romans  14:  1.  —  Him  that  is  weak  in  tlie  faith,  receive  ye, 
but  not  to  doubtful  disputations ;  for  one  believeth  that 
he  may  eat  all  things ;  another,  who  is  weak,  eateth  herbs     11 

SEEMOIS^  II. 

THE  GOLDEN  RULE. 

Matthew  7  :  12. — Therefore  all  things  whatsoever  ye  would 
that  men  should  do  to  you,  do  you  even  so  to  them;  for 
this  is  the  law  and  th-e  prophets 31 

SERMON  III.  • 

RIGHTEOUSNESS. 

^«^  Psalms  48  :  10.  —  Thy  right  hand  is  full  of  righteousness        -    49 

t 


CONTENTS. 


SEEMON  lY. 

CHRISTIANITY  AND  DOGMA. 

John  7:17.  —  If  any  man  will   do   His  will   lie   shall   know 
of  the  doctrine,  whether  it  be  of  God  or  whether  I  speak 


of  myself 


69 


SEEMOIVT  Y. 

EMOTION  AND  EVIDENCE. 
Proverbs  8  :  16. —  I  love  them  that  love  me  -        -        -      87 

SEEMOTnT  yl 
good  works. 

James  1  :  24.  —  Ye  see,  then,  that  by  works  a  man  is  justi- 
fied, and  not  by  faith  only 105 

SEEMOIST  YII. 

THE  GREAT  DEBATE. 

Psalms  97  :  2.  —  Clouds  and  darkness  are  round  about  Him; 
righteousness  and  judgment  are  the  habitation  of  His 
thrrtne        - ^^^ 


CONTENTS. 


SERMOJST  YIII. 

CHARLES  SUMNER. 
The  powers  that  be  are  ordained  of  God  .        .        .        .     14B 

SEEMOK  IX. 

THE  LOST  PARADISE. 

Genesis  3  :  24.  —  So  He  drove  out  the  man,  and  He  placed 
at  the  east  of  the  garden  of  Eden  cherubim,  and  a  flam- 
ing sword  which  turned  every  way,  to  keep  the  way  of 
the  tree  of  life 163 

seemo:n'  X. 

POSITIVE   RELIGION. 

Matthew  5  :  17.  —  Think  not  that  I  am  come  to  destroy 
the  law  or  the  prophets.  I  am  not  come  to  destroy 
but    to   fulfill  183 

SERMOJST  XI. 

CHRISTIANITY  AS  A  CIVILIZATION. 

Mal.  3  :  3.  —  And  he  shall  sit  as  a  refiner  and  purifier  of 
silver 201 


CONTENTS. 


SEKMOK  XII. 

* 

ST.  PAUL 219 

SEEMOIS^  XIII. 

FAITH. 

John  3  :  36.  —  He  that  believetli  on  tlie  Son  liath  everlast- 
ing life,  but  he  that  believeth  not  the  Son  shall  not  see 
life,  but  the  wrath  of  God   abideth  on  him       -        -        -    237 

SEKMOIS^  XIY. 

ST.  JOHN 259 

SERMOIs^  XY. 

IMMORTAL  LIFE. 

Luke  20:38.  —  For  he  is  not  a  God  of  the  dead  out  of 
the  living,  for  all   live   unto  him        .        .        -  -    277 


RELIGIOUS  TOLERATION,  OR  CHARITY. 


SEEMOIT  I. 
RELIGIOUS  TOLERATION,  OR  CHARITY. 


"  Him  tliat  is  weak  in  the  faith,  receive  ye,  but  not  to  doubtful 
disputations ;  for  one  believeth  that  he  may  eat  all  things ; 
another,  who  is  weak,  eateth  herbs." —  Rom.  I4 : 1. 

"XT^OU  may  consider   this   entire  chapter   to   be   the 
-^     source   of  my  theme,  and  the   theme,  therefore, 
to  be  the  Toleration  of  Religious  Opinion. 

The  word  "  toleration  "  suffers  a  change  of  meaning 
in  successive  times.  To  suffer  an  opposite  sect  to 
worship  at  all,  to  suffer  your  religions  opposite  to  live, 
was  once  the  meaning  of  toleration.  But  we  have 
passed  beyond  that  nsage  of  the  term,  and  have  come 
to  a  better  age,  when  toleration  means  the  extending 
toward  one  of  different  belief  our  friendship  and  all 
the  civilities  of  refined  or  Christian  life.  Not  daring 
any  more  to  put  men  to  death  for  their  opinions,  the 
question  remains  as  to  how  much  ill  feeling  we  must 
suppress  and  actual  good-will  reveal.     This  is  the  form 


12  RELIGIOUS  TOLERATION,  OR  CHARITY. 


assumed  by  the  question  in  our  enlightened  and  free 

country. 

We  suffer  this  morning  the  pain  that  comes  from 
discussing  a  subject  too  large  for  the  hour  — a  subject 
the  complete  investigation  of  which  would  demand 
your  study,  your  reading,  your  deep  interest,  for  days 
instead  of  moments.  Each  week  in  this  era,  when  the 
world  has  grown  so  broad  in  its  means  of  investiga- 
tion and  in  its  power  to  investigate,  the  pulpit  more 
and  more  must  feel  that  it  can  only  suggest  lines  of 
thought,  and  in  its  half  hour  indicate  subjects  worthy 
of  the  more  deliberate  and  thorough  study  of  the  mul- 
titude. In  our  vast  world,  the  clergy  and  all  public 
speakers  have  become  only  an  index  of  the  book  of 
knowledge,  instead  of  being  the  grand  solid  volume  in 
which  the  wisdom  is  all  elaborated.  In  the  ages  of 
great  vices  the  clergy  were  likened  unto  finger-boards 
which  pointed  out  to  others  paths  in  which  they 
•did  not  themselves  journey.  This  is  perhaps  no  longer 
true  as  to  virtue,  but  it  is  as  to  knowledge,  for,  like 
finger-boards,  we  can  point  out  the  paths  of  study  and 
research,  but  are  unable  to  go  with  you  in  the  long 
but  impressive  journey. 

This  chapter  from  St.  Paul  is  worthy  of  being 
learned  by  heart,  and  then,  in  many  a  silent  hour  when 
alone,  we  would  find  discourses  flowing  into  our  souls 


RELIGIOUS  TOLERATION,  OR  CHARITY.  13 

from  that  great  perennial  fountain.  The  words,  him 
that  is  weak  in  the  faith  receive,  but  not  to  doubtful 
disputations,  draw  their  truthfulness  from  the  very  na- 
ture and  condition  of  man.  The  fact  that  man  is  by 
nature  imperfect,  makes  it  necessary  that  he  should 
also  be  tolerant.  The  fate  that  gave  man  a  career  of 
comparative  ignorance  ought  to  secure  for  him  a  career 
full  of  charity  and  forgiveness  given  and  received. 
There  is  nothing  more  universal  than  ignorance,  and 
hence  there  should  be  no  virtue  more  universal  than 
toleration  of  religious  opinion.  By  ignorance  I  do 
not  mean  barbarism,  but  that  humility  of  knowledge 
confessed  by  even  the  most  learned  of  each  successive 
generation.  The  facility  with  which  we  all  absorb 
error,  the  readiness  with  which  we  all  fall  into  deep 
and  blind  prejudices,  should  make  us  always  ready, 
not  indeed  to  excuse  sin  against  light,  but  to  tolerate 
many  shades  of  religious  opinion.  It  is  folly  to  de- 
mand a  unity  of  belief  in  a  world  where  there  is  no 
one  wise  but  God,  and  no  one  good  except  God.  Some 
of  the  best  men  who  have  ever  lived  are  now  seen  to 
have  been  the  victims  of  great  errors ;  and  the  perse- 
cutions they  carried  forward  in  the  name  of  their 
superior  wisdom  appear  to  us  now  in  a  bad  light 
indeed,  when  it  is  now  evident  that  they  themselves 
held  only  a  very  imperfect  system  of  doctrine.     Their 


14  RELI0I0U8  TOLERATION,  OR  CHARITY. 

mistake  lay  in  the  assumption  that  they  had  reached 
the  ideal  in  religion ;  whereas.  God  only  holds  the 
ideal  in  knowledge ;  man  deals  only  in  the  imperfect. 
It  was  a  maxim  of  the  ancients  that  you  must  not 
praise  one  until  after  he  is  dead,  for  there  is  no  secu- 
rity that  he  may  not  commit  a  crime  or  reveal  a  folly 
even  in  his  most  mature  days.  The  old  statesman 
may  at  last  accept  a  bribe,  or  may,  having  been  a 
republican,  become  at  last  an  aristocrat  and  a  des- 
pot. We  must  pause  until  he  has  ended  his  career, 
and  then,  if  he  dies  in  perfect  honor,  praise  may  chant 
its  song  safely  over  that  tomb  which  ends  all  the 
vicissitudes  of  earth.  Caesar  set  out  as  a  great  Ro- 
man republican,  the  hater  of  crowns  and  lover  of  the 
dear  people;  but,  says  the  play,  "Was  the  crown 
offered  him  thrice?  Aye,  many  was't,  and  he  put  it 
by  thrice,  every  time  gentler  than  the  other."  Ac- 
cording to  history,  Csesar's  democracy  was  being  drained 
out  of  him  in  the  late  years  of  his  career,  thus  show- 
ing us  that  the  grave  is  the  place  for  pronouncing 
the  true  eulogy  over  man.  After  God  has  let  the 
curtain  fall,  then  we  can  come  with  our  estimate  of 
love  or  sorrow. 

The  same  philosophy  must  apply  to  the  forms  of 
Christianity  that  walk  in  a  sort  of  individual  life 
before  us.     I    should    not   be  willing  to   put  to  death 


RELIGIOUS  TOLERATION,  OR  CHARITY.  15 

any  one  for  not  being  a  Presbyterian  or  a  Methodist, 
not  be  willing  because  these  religions  have  not  come 
to  their  final  estimate.  There  may  be  great  errors 
within  them  that  have  escaped  our  sight,  some  hidden 
evil,  like  that  in  Csesar,  which  made  him  push  back 
the  crown  each  time  gentler  than  before.  It  is  pos- 
sible that  some  other  form  of  doctrine  might  have 
brought  greater  virtue  and  happiness  to  society,  and 
it  is  possible  that  out  of  the  future  a  Church  will  be 
born  dearer  than  either  both  to  man  and  God.  Hence 
it  is  necessary  for  those  living  within  these  two  vast 
denominations  to  move  along  in  charity  toward  man- 
kind, waiting  not  for  the  tomb,  in  this  case,  for  they' 
may  not  perish,  but  for  the  verdict  of  ftitm^ity.  If  in 
the  end  of  the  human  race,  or  in  the  end  of  this  or 
the  next  century,  the  millions  of  earth  shall  look  back 
and  say  that  Presbyterianism  or  Methodism  led  a  useful, 
beautiful  life,  and  then  sweetly  died  because  of  some- 
thing better,  that  praise  will  sound  like  music  over 
our  tombs,  unsullied  either  by  egotism  or  blood.  The 
Savior  said,  ''  Why  call  ye  me  good  ?  there  is  none 
good  but  God."  ]^one  wise  but  Him.  Hence  the 
highest  aspiration  of  an  individual  or  a  church  should 
be  to  walk  along  in  humility  and  tenderness,  and  wait 
for  the  final  verdict  of  God  and  humanity. 

All  intolerance  is  based  upon  egotism.     It  proceeds 


16  RELIGIOUS  TOLERATION,   OR  CHARITY. 

from  the  assumption  that  you  have  reached  the  ideal. 
When  the  Puritans  banished  the  Quakers  it  was  done 
upon  the  assumption  that  the  Pilgrims  had  brought  the 
the  ideal  over  in  their  ship.  They  confessed  themselves 
to  represent  God  in  doctrine  and  sentiment.  But  now 
that  a  few  centuries  have  passed,  and  we  are  permitted 
to  see  the  Puritan  and  the  Quaker  in  the  light  of  lon^ 
generations,  we  perceive  that  the  most  truth  and  the  best 
truth  was  in  the  keeping,  not  of  those  who  ordained 
the  banishment,  but  of  those  who  indured  it.  The 
dreadful  persecution  to  which  the  Catholics  subjected 
the  world  all  originated  in  a  human  egotism  that 
cried,  "  I  have  found  it !  I  have  found  it ! "  They 
had  become  the  exponents  of  God.  Whereas  now 
history  shows  that  in  all  cases  the  persons  exiled  or 
put  to  death  held  a  better  creed  at  the  time  than 
those  who  forced  upon  them  the  bitter  fate.  The 
origin  of  intolerance  has  never  been  the  deeper  truth 
but  the  deeper  egotism.  It  comes  from  a  forgetful- 
ness  that  God  only  is  wise,  and  from  an  assumed 
agency  for  the  Almighty  in  worldly  aifairs. 

It  is  a  weakness  of  man  that  when,  in  business 
affairs,  he  is  employed  to  perform  some  office  for  an 
estate  or  a  government  or  corporation,  he  by  some 
strange  metamorphosis,  not  mentioned  in  0\dd,  be- 
comes very  soon  the  owner  of  the  estate  or  the  /center 


RELIGIOUS  TOLERATION,   OR   CHARITY.  IT 

and  soul  of  the  government,  or  sole  owner  of  the  cara- 
vansera  or  the  empire.  Intolerance  in  religion  is 
nothing  else  than  the  outcropping  of  this  human  in- 
firmity amid  other  surroundings.  All  the  difference 
is  that  this  graver  assumption  possesses  an  egotism 
more  solemn  and  less  manifest ;  but  it  is  the  same 
self-transformation  of  a  mortal  into  a  Deity.  It  is  a 
proverb  of  the  Bible,  "  Let  not  him  that  girdeth  on 
his  armor  boast  himself  as  he  that  taketh  it  off,''  for 
the  events  that  may  come  on  between  the  morning 
of  the  battle  and  its  night  are  many  and  unreadable. 
The  heart,  however  strong  and  confident,  must  wait 
till  the  struggle  is  over.  This  rule  must  be  seen  at 
once  to  apply  to  all  individual  and  sectarian  life.  In 
a  world  of  uncertainty,  that  applies  to  the  realm  of 
truth  as  well  as  to  that  of  military  skill,  one  dare 
not  boast  until  the  warfare  is  over.  Each  one  must 
pursue  his  path  of  duty  with  fidelity,  and  then  calmly 
wait  for  time  or  eternity  to  measure  the  quality  and 
quantity  of  the  truth  and  the  service.  It  ought  to  be 
a  warning  against  all  feeling  of  intolerance  that  the 
ideas  over  which  most  blood  has  been  shed,  have  in 
subsequent  experience  and  thought,  been  proven  to 
be  either  useless  or  false.  The  dogmas  for  which  one 
age  has  put  thousands  to  death,  have  by  a  subsequent 
age   been    withdrawn    as    false,    or    neglected    because 


l><  UELIGIOUS  TOLERATION,   OH   (JHARITY. 

useless.  But  one  might  have  premised  that  the  most 
intolerance  would  always  be  found  gathered  about 
the  least  valuable  doctrine,  because  the  most  valuable 
doctrines  are  always  so  evident  to  human  reason  that 
no  thumb-screw  or  faggot  is  ever  needed  to  make 
the  lips  whisper  assent.  Over  the  idea  that  two  and 
two  make  four  no  blood  has  been  shed ;  but  over 
the  insinuation  that  three  may  be  one,  or  one  three, 
there  has  often  been  a  demand  for  external  inliuence 
to  brace  up  for  the  work  the  frail  logical  faculty. 
It  is  probable  that  no  man  has  ever  been  put  to 
death  for  heresy  regarding  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount. 
Its  declarations  demand  no  tortures  to  aid  human 
faith ;  but  when  a  church  comes  along  with  its 
"  legitimacy,"  or  with  its  Five  Points,  or  with  its 
Prayer  Book,  or  its  Infant  Baptism,  or  Eternal  Pro- 
cession of  the  Holy  Ghost,  then  comes  the  demand 
for  the  rack  and  the  stake  to  make  up  in  terrorism 
what  is  wanting  in  evidence.  In  the  fourth  century 
Christianity  had  already  been  divided  up  into  ninety 
different  sects.  Whether  Christ  had  two  souls,  one 
human  and  the  other  Divine,  became  a  dividing 
question,  and  each  party  persecuted  the  other.  And, 
also,  the  time  of  celebrating  Easter  involved  the 
salvation  or  damnation  of  men.  And  when  the  nature 
of    the    light    at    the    Transfiguration    was    discussed, 


RELIGIOUS  TOLERATION,  OR  CHARITY.  19 

at  an  early  council,  it  was  resolved  that  anyone  con- 
tending that  the  light  making  the  halo  about  Christ 
was  not  uncreated  —  a  soul  brilliancy  —  should  be 
deprived  of  Christian  burial  at  life's  close.  Thus^ 
where  evidence  was  most  wanting,  it  has  been  most 
customary  to  find  outside  aids  to  faith.  When  wit- 
nesses were  wanting,  the  High  Priests  rent  their 
clothes. 

History  will,  no  doubt,  bear  me  out  in  the  asser- 
tion that  the  quantity  of  intolerance  has  always  been 
inversely  as  the  value  of  the  doctrine,  the  greatest 
bigotiy  always  crystallizing  around  the  least  valuable 
idea.  If  God  has  so  fashioned  the  human  mind  that 
all  its  myriad  forms  can  agree  upon  doctrines  that  are 
most  vital ;  and  if,  as  a  fact,  persecution  has  always 
attached  itself  to  the  small,  then  we  would  seem  to 
have  the  curse  of  God  visibly  revealed  against  intoler- 
ance, in  the  fact  that  He  has  separated  it  from  the 
large  and  evident,  and  linked  its  destiny  to  that  which 
is  both  unimportant  and  doubtful.  With  the  experi- 
ence and  exposures  of  a  thousand  years  before  us,  we 
all,  if  feelings  of  intolerance  rise  in  our  hearts,  are 
bound  to  feel  that,  perhaps,  we  have  fallen  down  from 
the  upper  air,  and  are  lying  flat  in  that  realm  of  non- 
essentials, whose  support  has  always  come,  not  from 
sweet  truth,  but  from  passion. 


20  BELIOIOUS  TOLERATION,   OR  CHARITY. 

If  you  say,  have  not  all  the  sects  an  inspired  guide 
in  the  New  Testament  ?  Can  they  not  all  read  the  same 
words,  and  thus,  reproduce  the  same  church  and  the 
same  creed  ?  The  answer  is  easy :  An  inspired  word 
does  not  insure  an  inspired  interpretation.  The  marri- 
age contract  is  an  inspired  institution,  perhaps.  Assume 
it  to  be  such.  The  details  of  its  rights  and  powers  are 
human.  It  is  a  divine  union,  subjected  to  human 
rendering.  In  order  to  make  the  marriage  relation 
perfect,  all  possible  forms  and  circumstances  of  it  should 
have  been  furnished  men  along  with  the  central  idea. 
But  the  creator  never  perfectly  equips  man.  He  gives 
him  a  feeble  outfit,  like  a  son  started  by  his  father  for 
a  new  country.  The  son  has  a  common  school  educa- 
tion, habits  of  industry,  and  a  hundred  pounds.  Subse- 
quent things  must  come  by  subsequent  labor.  The 
Bible  gives  only  an  outfit  —  the  implements  of  industry. 
The  Bible  is  thus  submitted  to  human  interpretation ; 
and  thus  inspiration,  like  the  river  through  old  Eden, 
is  divided  up  into  four  parts.  The  Presbyterian  reads 
Preacher ;  the  Episcopalian  takes  up  the  same  page  and 
reads  Bishop  ;  the  Calvinist  sees  all  the  words  that  exalt 
fate ;  the  Arminian  all  the  words  that  exalt  free  will ; 
in  baptism,  the  Baptists  behold  a  man  applied  to  water, 
the  other  sects  behold  water  applied  to  the  man.  It  is 
thus  readily  seen  that  inspiration  will  not  secure  unity 


RELIGIOUS  TOLERATION,   OR  CHARITY.  21 

unless  there  be  inspired  interpretation,  and  then  inter- 
pretation of  that  version,  onward  and  onward,  until 
the  mind  of  man  is  w^holly  superseded  by  the  infinite 
interference  of  God.  An  Episcopalian  clergyman  once 
said  in  my  hearing,  that  when  Paul  sent  for  the  garment 
he  left  at  Troas,  what  he  wanted  was  the  surplice  used 
in  his  sacred  oratory ;  whereas  other  denominations 
suppose  it  was  the  grand  old  Roman  cloak,  worn  not 
so  much  in  the  name  of  religion,  as  in  the  name  of  the 
[N^orth  Wind.  Either  theory  is  adequate,  tor  there  is 
no  doubt  the  classic  speakers  used  their  cloak  as  a 
part  of  rhetoric,  and  there  is  no  doubt  it  was  valuable, 
all  through  the  damp  winter  solstice.  Inspiration, 
therefore,  does  not  promise  unity  of  belief.  So  the 
Bible  speaks  of  witchcraft  and  of  lunacy ;  but  it  does 
not  inform  mankind  how  to  discriminate  between  the 
witch  and  the  lunatic.  Hence,  whereas  our  ancestors 
hung  ten  thousand  witches,  we  build  asylums  for  ten 
thousand  insane,  and  protect  with  love,  perhaps,  those 
whom  a  former  age  consumed  with  fire. 

The  fact  of  a  Bible  will  not  secure  unity  of  belief 
and  action,  because  in  the  intei'pretation  the  human 
mind  reappears  in  all  its  individuality  and  lawlessness. 
Xo  truth  can  be  so  plainly  set  forth  that  subsequent 
generations  will  not  stumble  amid  the  words  and  sen- 
tences  of  the  place  that  uttered   them.     No   men   are 


22  RELIGIOUS  TOLEliATiOJS,   OH  VHAlilTY. 


more  accustomed  than  lawyers  and  lawmakers  to  an 
exact  use  of  words,  but  it  used  to  be  said  that  Ameri- 
can law,  once  gathered  up,  had  to  be  sent  to  England 
to  be  interpreted  for  the  very  nation  that  made  it; 
and  for  this  reason  the  interpretation  of  law  is  the 
chief  pursuit  of  the  very  mind  that  expresses  and 
enacts  it  In  such  a  world  unity  of  religious  belief 
could  only  be  secured  by  God's  silencing  the  human 
mind,  and  placing  himself  upon  the  throne  of  human 
reason,  with  reason  bound  in  chains  at  his  feet.  But 
this  would  be  the  annihilation  of  man,  and  better  than 
this  is  the  progress  of  man,  with  a  charity  as  broad  as 
human  life ;  with  a  toleration  as  universal  as  our  ignor- 
ance and  our  mistakes;  with  a  mutual  forgiveness  as 
omnipresent  as  are  the  shadows  and  mysteries  of  hu- 
man life.  All  that  is  needed  is  a  diversity  without 
sorrow  or  even  surprise,  a  variety  as  of  clouds  or  wild- 
flowers. 

We  stated,  a  few  moments  since,  that  it  is  the 
tendency  and  necessity  of  intolerance  to  spend  its  force 
upon  the  least  significant  doctrines  that  spring  from 
authority  or  fancy  rather  than  from  the  most  evident 
wants  of  society.  To  determine  what  doctrines  are 
essential,  and  to  feel  how  misplaced  all  intolerance 
has  been,  just  look  back,  and  you  will  see  how  few  are 
the  valuable  ideas  that  emerge  from  a  given  age  and 


RELIGIOUS  TOLERATION,  OR  CHARITY.  23 

reveal  themselves.  Oh,  is  it  possible  that  the  thou- 
sands of  tenets  for  which  men  were  racked  were  too 
feeble  to  ontlive  the  very  lire  that  burnt  the  heretic! 
Oh,  yes,  it  is  possible !  Heretic  and  fire  and  the  idea 
are  all  gone  together.  The  idea  that  killed  noble  men 
was  itself  too  feeble  to  live. 

Look  back  over  the  history  of  Jewish  or  Catholic 
or  Waldensian  or  Protestant  sect,  and  when  you  seek 
for  their  ideas  of  value  you  come  at  last  to  their 
charity  and  purity  and  faith  in  God  and  the  Savior  — 
their  pursuit  of  knowledge  and  hope  of  heaven.  You 
think  of  nothing  else.  You  shovel  away  the  dust 
and  debris  of  centuries,  that  by  chance  you  may  come 
upon  these  jewels  in  the  diadem  of  religion.  And 
if  you  find  these,  you  bless  the  old  Church  that  lived 
and  died  on  the  spot.  But  all  else  is  beneath  your 
notice.  Kubric,  surplice,  prayer  book,  two  souls  of 
Christ,  the  Easter  time,  the  transfiguration  light,  the 
election,  the  predestination,  the  laying  on  of  hands, 
all  count  no  more  with  the  thouo^htful  historian  seek- 
ing  for  the  merits  of  an  age  than  counted  the  cos- 
tumes of  those  eras  or  the  carriages  they  drove.  We 
place  them  below  price.  There  is  a  certain  divine 
instinct  in  man  that  enables  him  when  measuring 
the  past  to  become  noble,  and  seize  upon  the  valuable 
elements    in    character,    and    pass    by    the    temporary 


24  RELIGIOUS   TOLERATION,   OH   (JIIARITF. 

without  any  doubt  or  re^iijret ;  but  dealing  with  the 
present,  this  divine  instinct  seems  to  desert  us,  and, 
grasping  an  accident  in  our  arms,  we  permit  virtue 
and  faith  and  charity,  God  and  heaven,  to  fall  through 
to  the  dust.  Tiow  is  it  that  when  we  contemplate 
either  the  past  or  the  future  a  certain  nobleness 
goes  with  us  that  overlooks  all  small  things  and 
cleaves  to  the  good,  and  that  all  the  littleness  we 
possess  is  concentrated  within  the  pulse-beats  of  to- 
day ?  The  only  explanation  must  be  this  —  that  each 
man's  real  life  is  smaller  than  his  soul.  It  is 
belittled  by  the  prejudices  and  interests  of  the  pass- 
ing hour;  but  when  he  goes  to  examine  the  past, 
or  throws  his  mind  forward  a  century,  he  leaves 
behind  him  his  sect  and  his  ambition  and  his  out- 
look of  business  and  his  real  estate,  and  goes  to  the 
past  and  the  future  only  as  a  soul,  a  thing  of  thought 
and  love,  an  image  of  the  Almighty.  We  love  the 
simplicity  of  our  fathers  who  were  virtuous,  in  plain 
houses ;  looking  to  the  future,  we  see  a  return  to 
simplicity  and  call  it  a  golden  age,  but  In  the  present 
we  love  furniture  and  to  fare  sumptuously  every 
day.  This  is  because  the  present  grinds  ns  by  its 
customs  and  sins,  and  hence  escaping  backward  or 
forward  we  behold  the  truth  as  it  is  in  God.  Thus 
the  soul  of  each  man  is  greater  ahvays  than  his 
daily  life.     Present  business  and  vices  eclipse  the  spirit. 


RELIGIOUS  TOLERATION,   OR   CHARITY.  25 

In  order,  therefore,  to  find  the  best  idea  of  the 
Christian  Church,  and  perfectly  to  escape  the  intolerant 
spirit,  one  would  do  well  to  resort  to  the  past,  where 
he  can  perceiv'e  that  the  ideas  over  which  most  blood 
was  shed  were  ideas  that  died  soonest,  and  that  were 
of  least  utility  while  living ;  or  would  do  well  to  rush 
to  the  future  and  there  find  that  only  a  few  cardinal 
truths  of  character  and  of  the  cross,  of  virtue  and 
heaven  have  dared  to  assemble  in  the  holy  air.  Back- 
ward or  forward,  and  there  is  seen  a  wonderful  death  of 
the  small  and  wonderful  resm-rection  of  the  great,  because, 
backward  or  forward  either,  there  is  a  wonderful  return 
of  the  soul  to  the  justice  and  intuition  of  its  Maker. 
Reflection,  backward  or  forward,  is  like  that  strange 
mirage  along  the  lakes  whereby  cities  and  landscapes 
are  repeated  in  the  sky  in  only  their  purity,  all  their 
sins,  and  diseases,  and  miasmas,  and  crimes,  and  sorrows^ 
being  left  on  the  ground  beneath.  The  outlines  of 
palaces,  the  spires  of  God's  temples,  the  forests,  the 
everlasting  hills,  are  the  only  things  worthy  of  being 
uplifted  by  the  white  arms  of  the  radiant  light.  So  in 
history,  or  in  futurity,  we  see  the  Christian  Church 
in  the  sublime  outline  of  Jesus  Christ,  all  else  being 
left  in  the  dust  beneath. 

Having  in  this  brief  argument  found  a  ground  for 
religious  toleration  in  the  natural  uncertainty  of  liuman 


26  RtJLlGJOUS   TOLERATION,   OR  CHARITY. 

knowledge,  and  in  the  fact  that  men  have  persecuted 
their  fellows  most  over  the  smallest  ideas,  I  would 
eaj  only  a  few  words  against  any  form  of  intolerance, 
€ven  when  confessed  errors  exist  in  their  worst  possible 
forms.  Suppose  the  heretic,  as  the  world  calls  him, 
pronounces  Christ  an  impostor,  and  denies  the  existence 
of  God,  still  all  the  light  that  will  ever  come  into  his 
mind  from  man  will  be  along  the  chords  of  friendship 
passing  from  the  better  heart  to  his.  Words  spoken 
without  bitterness,  spoken  with  the  confession  full  and 
free  of  human  equality,  words  wreathed  with  friendship, 
are  the  only  ones  that  ever  penetrate  the  soul.  The 
man  who  hates  us,  and  whom  we  hate,  need  not  speak. 
His  words  are  like  a  discord.  Thus  the  ill-will  of  the 
old  Puritans  jarred  like  bells  jangled  out  of  tune  upon 
the  ear  of  Thomas  Paine,  and  each  anathema  from 
the  Church  only  separated  him  farther  from  the  presence 
and  beauty  of  God,  for  God  is  not  a  God  of  discord, 
but  of  harmony.  One  of  the  ancient  Greeks  perceived 
this  means  of  converting  men,  when  he  said  the  "  Boxer 
advances  with  a  closed  fist,  but  the  orator  always  with 
an  open  hand." 

God  has  so  created  his  human  children  that  all 
their  best  happiness,  their  best  home,  their  best  gov- 
ernment, their  best  reform,  their  best  literature,  their 
best  art,  springs  up  from  a  deep  friendsliip  from   man 


RELIGIOUS  TOLERATION,   OR   VHARITT.  2T 

to  man.  Thus,  therefore,  the  best  Christianity  will 
come,  come  the  most,  and  the  most  rapidly.  God 
himself  being  happiness  and  love,  and  the  blessed 
Savior  having  come  to  earth  in  the  name  of  an 
infinite  friendship,  the  genius  and  destiny  of  earth  are 
mirrored  in  the  Creator  and  Savior,  and  earth's  re- 
form will  come  like  republicanism  and  the  arts,  not 
by  the  discord  of  souls,  but  by  their  loving  brother- 
hood.    Friendship  is  the  condition  of  civilization. 

The  classics  used  to  call  all  the  studies  of  scholars 
—  history,  poetry,  art,  eloquence,  music  —  the  humani- 
ties, because  they  brought  no  wars,  no  bloodshed,  but 
set  out  from  a  human  love  and  advanced  in  the  name 
of  pleasure  and  peace. 

Shall  we  not  open  the  sacred  list  and  insert  among 
the  dear  humanities  that  religion,  whose  love  surpasses 
all  measurement,  and  whose  tears  for  man  fall  like 
dew  from  the  manger  to  the  cross?  The  first  disciples 
came  not  by  violence,  but  by  a  blessed  invitation. 
One  of  them  was  grandly  transformed,  not  by  perse- 
cution, but  by  resting  in  peace  where  his  head  was 
near  a  divine  heart.  In  the  name  of  such  a  sublime 
scene  we  are  all  bound  to  speak  religion's  truths  in 
love,  and  to  offer  our  fellow  men,  not  doubtful  dispu- 
tations, but  a  place  of  forgiveness  and  peace  upon  a 
heart  divine  in  breadth  and  tenderness. 


THE    GOLDEN    RULE 


SERMOiS"   II. 
THE   GOLDEN   RULE. 


"  Therefore  all  things  whatsoever  ye  would  that  men  should  do 
to  you,  do  you  even  so  to  them ;  for  this  is  the  law  and  the  pro- 
phets."—Jfa«.  7  .•  12. 

T  I  ^PIE  transition  from  barbarous  to  civilized  life  may 
-*-  be  read  by  the  progress  made  toward  just  and  uni- 
form and  universal  laws.  If  the  quantity  of  gold  were 
an  evidence  of  civilization,  the  Spaniards  of  old  Mexico 
equaled  New  England  in  the  civilized  condition.  If 
raiment  and  elegant  furniture  and  palaces  were  a 
proof  of  human  progress,  the  Turks  and  the  Chinese 
emperors  have  long  been  the  equals  of  Washington  and 
Lincoln.  But  it  seems  evident  that,  in  the  composi- 
tion of  the  Mexican,  and  Turk,  and  Orientalist  at  large, 
there  is  some  element  wanting,  preventing  their  con- 
dition from  being  a  culture,  a  civilization.  While  it 
is  impossible  to  find  all  the  delicate  threads  that  make 
up  a  great  and  complete  human  character,  it  seems  evi- 
dent that  no  one  fact  so  truly  indicates  civilization  as 
the  presence  and  activity  in  a  nation  of  general  laws  of 


32  THE  OOLBEN  RULE. 

riglit,  and  industry,  and  liappiness  —  wise,  and  tender, 
and  uniform.  The  libraries  of  England,  lier  myriad 
ships,  her  literature,  would  not  complete  for  her  a  form 
of  civilization,  if  she  still  held  slaves,  or  still  hung 
children  for  theft,  or  hung  old  women  for  witchcraft, 
that  is,  for  dressing  in  black  and  growing  weak  in  body 
and  mind.  And  America  was  the  reproach  of  the 
famil}^  of  nations  until  she  freed  her  slaves.  The  high- 
est idea  man  can  cherish  being  that  of  right,  and  the 
most  divine  conduct  being  obedience  of  the  laws  of 
right,  there  could  be  no  high  civilization  with  such  an 
idea  and  such  a  conduct  disregarded;  and  hence  the 
honor  of  civilization  never  comes  with  man's  furniture, 
and  silks,  and  gold,  and  commerce,  but  with  his  broad, 
intelligent  justice.  It  being  so  essential,  therefore,  that 
each  individual  be  engaged  in  the  practice  of  justice, 
and  that  each  member  of  society  receive  a  fair  treat 
ment  from  all  around  him,  a  law  expressed  in  words  that 
shall  be  brief,  true,  and  easily  comprehended,  is  more 
desirable  than  pages  of  philosophy  or  of  poetry,  or 
galleries  of  art. 

The  golden  rule  is  no  doubt  one  of  the  most 
fundamental  laws  that  can  ever  be  expressed  in  words 
or  carried  in  the  mind  of  man.  Nature's  great  law, 
that  matter  attracts  matter,  that  a  vast  central  world 
will  attract  planets  from   a  straight  line  into  a  circle, 


THE  GOLDEN  RULE.  ^  33 

that  an  earth  will  draw  a  falling  apple  to  itself,  and 
hold  its  liquid  sea  and  liquid  air  close  to  itself,  and 
will  hold  the  seas  under  the  air  and  the  land  under 
the  sea,  is  not  more  fundamental  in  the  material  w^orld 
than  the  golden  rule  is  in  the  world  of  duty  and 
happiness.  Take  away  the  single  principle  discovered 
by  Newton,  and  the  organized  universe  is  at  once 
dissolved,  air  and  water  and  land  mingle,  our  globe 
would  become  a  fluid,  and  fill  its  orbit  with  a  floating 
debris  of  itself  The  golden  rule  underlies  our  public 
and  private  justice,  our  society,  our  charity,  our  educa- 
tion, our  religion;  and  the  sorrows  of  bad  government, 
of  famine,  of  war,  of  caste,  of  slavery,  have  come  from 
contempt  of  this  principle. 

Of  the  origin  of  this  statement  little  can  be  learned. 
It  is  almost  impossible  to  conceive  of  any  degree  of 
enlightenment  that  could  have  escaped  it;  it  would 
seem  so  easy  for  any  one  seeing  a  fellow-man  com- 
mitting an  unjust  and  cruel  act  to  say,  "How  would 
you  like  to  be  treated  in  that  style?"  And  yet 
whenever  such  a  feeling  of  inquiry  has  risen  in  the 
heart  that  has  been  the  shadow  of  the  golden  rule 
— the  question.  How  would  you  love  to  be  treated 
thus?  is  the  principle.  It  is  difficult  to  imagine  a 
day  that  could  have  been  ignorant  of  this  application 
of  justice.  It  must  have  been  the  lament  of  Cain  over 
8 


~  THE  GOLDEN  RULE. 


the  dead  body  of  Abel,  that  he  had  done  as  he  would 
not  have  wished  to  be  done  by.  It  is  incredible  that 
any  historic  land  should  wholly  have  escaped  the 
thought.  The  history  of  the  world  is  so  imperfect, 
and  then  so  far  as  it  goes  is  only  a  history  of  wars 
and  kings,  and  not  a  history  at  all  of  morals  or 
thought,  that  we  know  little  of  the  maxims  and  con- 
stitutions that  lay  beneath  old  actions.  What  David 
thought  after  he  had  slain  Uriah,  or  what  Csesar 
thought  when  he  had  murdered  a  few  hundred  thou- 
sand Germans,  can  never  be  culled  from  a  history  that 
looked  with  contempt  upon  any  facts  less  conspicuous 
than  a  crown  or  a  pageant,  or  a  battle-field.  Even 
if  over  the  most  of  the  great  heathen  world  there 
rolled  such  a  cloud  of  vice  and  cruelty  that  the  public 
never  came  up  to  this  sweet  sense  of  reciprocal  kind- 
ness, yet  there  might  have  been  tender  hearts  here 
and  there  in  all  ages,  from  Babylon  and  Tyre  to 
Rome  and  Athens,  that  wept  tears  of  sympathy  in 
the  name  of  the  golden  rule.  In  Confucius,  at  last, 
this  divine  instinct  of  the  soul  began  to  break  forth 
in  history.  He  said,  "  You  must  not  do  to  others 
what  you  would  not  they  should  do  to  you."  This 
was  only  a  refrain.  It  was  a  rule  telling  us  what 
to  avoid  doing.  The  grand  old  Plato  went  further, 
and  in  a  kind  of  prayer,  says,  in  the  eleventh  book  of 


THE  GOLDEN  RULE.  35 

liis   Dialogues,    ''May   I   being   of  sound   mind   do   to 
others  as  I   would  that   they   should   do  to  me." 

Thus  in  the  long  past  this  heavenly  maxim  gave 
frequent  signs  of  its  coming,  and  as  the  returning  sun 
in  the  arctic  zone  after  months  of  night  begins  to  utter 
prophecies  upon  the  horizon,  so  the  golden  rule  began 
far  back,  and,  after  a  long  night,  to  paint  glorious 
prophecies  upon  the  borders  of  man's  moral  night.  All 
who  have  looked  over  history  will,  however,  remember 
now  what  an  immense  difference  there  is  between  the 
first  hint  of  a  law  or  truth  and  the  final  enthronement 
of  the  principle  in  the  public  heart.  All  literature  of 
the  church  from  Augustine  to  Luther,  twelve  hundred 
years,  was  full  of  Reformation  ideas.  Luther  did  not 
discover  anything.  He  was  not  the  first  to  express  a 
single  doctrine  or  fact.  He  was  not  the  second,  nor 
the  tenth.  Xot  a  generation  passed  between  Christ  and 
the  sixteenth  century  wherein  some  one  did  not  come 
forward  with  the  ideas  which  Luther  afterward  gloried 
in ;  and  yet  between  those  and  Luther  there  lies  an 
infinite  distance  created  by  the  absence  of  individual 
elements  such  as  Luther  possessed,  and  the  unfitness, 
unreadiness  of  society.  To  find  the  glory  therefore  of 
a  truth  you  must  not  pause  with  the  man  who  may 
have  first  announced  it,  for  he  mav  have  had  no  con- 
ception  of  its  worth  and  may  have  given  it  little  love. 


\ 


3t)  THE  GOLDEN  RULE. 


like  the  Sibyl  who  wrote  prophecies  which  she  did  not 
herself  understand,  and  which,  written  upon  leaves,  she 
permitted  the  winds  to  carry  about  never  to  be  seen 
or  cared  for  again.  In  order  to  locate  the  glory  of 
discovery  you  must  measure  the  heart  and  mind  that 
iirst  took  hold  of  the  idea  or  law  in  its  infancy  or  later 
life.  You  will  tind  the  word  liberty  in  Caesar's  history 
and  in  Cicero's  ethics,  but  they  knew  nothing  of  the 
idea  as  compared  with  that  conception  of  the  word  in 
the  mind  of  a  Wilberforce  or  a  Polish  exile. 

There  being  such  a  vast  difference  between  the  utter- 
ance of  a  truth  and  the  enthronement  of  it  in  men's 
hearts,  we  must  cast  our  chief  offerings  of  gratitude 
at  the  feet  of  that  One  who  had  the  goodness  and 
greatness  needed  to  hurl  this  law  into  life.  Toward 
the  golden  rule  Christ  sustains  this  relation :  He 
translated  a  principle  into  a  law  of  every  day  and 
of  every  place  and  of  every  man,  and  then,  by  a 
strange  power,  and  by  a  life  and  death  of  wonderful 
import.  He  hurled  this  world  of  love  right  into  the 
bosoms  of  men.  What  other  ages  may  have  said  or 
dreamed  fades  before  the  passion  and  grand  uprising 
of  that  divine  soul  in  Nazareth.  In  order  to  make 
this  Savior  seem  great  as  possible  in  the  minds  of  the 
common  people,  the  pulpit  often  seems  to  desire  all 
inquiry  to  pause  in  the  sacred  text,  and  there  find  all 


THE  GOLDEN  RULE.  37 

science,  all  agriculture,  all  pleasui'es,  all  policies,  all 
doctrines.  It  desires  mankind  to  think  of  the  world 
as  having  begun  all  action  with  the  voice  of  John  in 
the  wilderness.  But  this  is  a  suppression  of  the 
truth  that  makes  infidels  of  thousands  of  youth  who 
dre  left  to  battle  with  strange  questions  in  later  life 
with  learned  men  in  the  street,  and  in  the  halls  of 
science  and  learning.  Christianity  needs  no  sujpjpressio 
veri.  It  needs  no  art,  no  subterfuge.  What  it  needs 
most  of  all  is  the  open  light  of  day,  and  the  most 
perfect  frankness  of  friend  and  foe.  The  facts  seem  to 
be  these:  The  golden  rule  had  tried  long  to  grow  up 
out  of  the  human  mind  and  spirit,  and  thus  for  thou- 
sands of  years  the  soul  stood  prophetic  of  a  Jesus. 
Upon  a  stormy  sea  the  soul  had  long  hung  out  signals 
of  distress,  and  at  times  had  dreamed  it  saw  a  harbor 
of  refuge.  In  Plato  it  bowed  in  prayer  for  perhaps 
what  seemed  above  mortality,  but  the  storm  continued 
and  the  prayer  died  away.  If  now  Christ  came  to 
answer  the  long-flying  signal  of  distress,  to  make  more 
universal  a  prayer  that  seemed  too  good  for  even 
one,  if  He  came  to  answer  the  longing  wrung  out  of 
the  heart  by  the  agony  of  long  injustice,  and  if  by 
lifting  the  world  up  He  made  their  foreheads  touch 
these  divine  letters,  that  is  glory  enough,  especially  for 
the    Meek    and    Lowly    One,   who    came    not    to    seek 


38  THE  GOLDEN  RULE. 

applause,   but  to  bring  a  salvation,  and  wear,  if  need 
be,  a  crown  of  thorns. 

It  is  enough  that  at  Christ  the  great  law  sprang  into 
life,  and  became  not  a  philosopher's  dream,  but  the 
constitution  of  a  new  civilization.  Our  national  idea 
that  man  has  an  inherent  right  to  life,  liberty,  and  the 
pursuit  of  happiness,  can  be  found  in  all  the  poetry  of 
the  world,  from  the  Zend  Avesta  to  Cowper's  Task ; 
but  the  great  day  of  the  idea  dawned  when  a  great 
nation,  covering  a  continent,  and  destined  to  count 
soon  a  hundred  millions,  wrote  down  this  principle  as 
the  basis  of  a  national  life ;  dawned  when  thirteen 
States  and  three  millions  of  men  took  their  stand  there 
and,  unfurling  a  beautiful  flag,  looked  up  like  Martin 
Luther  and  said,  "  So  help  us,  God."  So  the  corona- 
tion day  of  the  golden  rule  came  when  that  tender 
expression  of  justice  crept  out  of  the  poetry  of  Plato, 
and,  made  sacred  by  Christ's  life  and  death,  quickened 
into  being  by  the  intenseness  of  a  soul  from  Heaven, 
that  lived  not  in  w^ords,  but  in  deeds,  glorified  by  the 
cross  and  the  resurrection  and  a  near  paradise,  was 
incorporated  fully  into  the  constitution  of  a  kingdom 
larger  than  America,  embracing  nothing  less  than  the 
globe,  and  raising  for  its  flag  God's  banner  of  love,  to 
wave  on  two  shores  —  the  here  and  hereafter.  This  was 
the  grand  unveiling  of  this  masterpiece   of  spiritual  art. 


THE  GOLDEN  RULE.  39 

But  we  pass  away  from  this  awarding  of  merit  to 
speak  frirther  of  the  law  itself. 

You  all  know  how  near  and  dear  a  thing  one's  own 
self  is.  The  moment  we  step  away  from  our  own 
consciousness  we  lose  our  mental  grasp  upon  the 
phenomenon  of  right  or  wrong.  We  can  look  upon  a 
suffering  man  sick  or  wounded  with  comparative  peace, 
because  our  knowledge  will  not  travel  away  from  our 
own  consciousness.  We  may  say,  "  Poor  man,  poor 
child,  we  pity  thee,"  but  we  are  so  cut  off  from  his 
pain  that  an  infinite  gulf  lies  between  our  feelings 
and  the  sufferer's  agony.  But  let  that  pain,  that  sick- 
ness, that  dying  come  to  self,  and  how  quickly  the 
heart  measures  all  the  depths  of  the  new  sorrow  ?  Oh, 
what  a  teacher  is  one's  own  breast !  It  is  now  reported 
that  one  of  the  victims  of  the  Cuban  massacre  offered 
a  million  dollars  if  the  savages  would  spare  him  his 
life.  The  death  of  others,  the  common  calamities  of 
life  had  not  filled  with  tremor  that  heart  naturally  brave ; 
the  grief  of  death  at  large  had  been,  as  it  were,  spoken 
in  a  foreign  language  not  to  be  understood  by  him,  but 
now  the  grim  monster  was  coming  up  against  self,  it 
was  his  heart  that  was  to  be  pierced  with  balls,  not 
yours,  nor  mine,  but  his  own,  bound  to  earth,  to  friends, 
to  country,  to  home  and  its  loved  ones ;  his  was  to  pour 
out  its  blood  and   sink  into  the  awful  mvsterv  of  the 


4rO  THE  GOLDEN  RULE. 

grave.  This  was  the  vivid  measurement  of  things  that 
made  the  hero  try  to  buy  sunshine  and  home  and  sweet 
life  with  gold.  AVhen  it  comes  to  any  adequate  measure- 
ment of  life's  ills  or  joys,  the  only  line  which  man  can 
lay  down  upon  the  unknown  is  the  consciousness  within, 
the  verdict  of  this  inner  self. 

The  golden  rule,  therefore,  surpasses  all  formulas 
ot  justice  by  bringing  the  case  before  this  loving, 
trembling,  sensitive  self,  and  begging  that  it  be  tried 
in  the  light  and  justice  of  all  this  light  of  self-love, 
self-joy  and  self-agony.  Had  the  captives  of  the  Yir- 
ginius  fallen  into  the  hands  of  men  who  had  come 
to  that  culture  which  can  see  the  misfortunes  of  others 
in  the  light  of  one's  own  misfortunes,  they  would 
have  been  held  as  prisoners  of  war,  or  as  criminals 
worthy  at  least  of  deliberative  action ;  but  falling  into 
hands  destitute  of  a  divine  consciousness  to  which  to 
refer,  their  fate  was  the  one  that  is  meted  out  alike 
by  the  savage  of  the  forest  or  the  tiger  of  the  jungle. 
Before  man  comes  to  the  golden  rule  of  arguing  from 
a  noble  self  outward,  or  after,  by  vice,  he  has  obliter- 
ated it,  we  may  well  leave  it  to  Darwin  to  determine 
whether  he  is  man  or  is  still  in  the  domain  of  the 
brute.  The  colosseum  at  Rome,  where  eighty  thou- 
sand poets,  orators  and  citizens  gathered  to  see  innocent 
men  fight  with  each  other  and  die ;  gathered  under  the 


THE  GOLDEN  RULE.  41 

eje  of  such  barbarism  that  when  brothers  met  in  the 
arena  and  did  not  possess  the  nerve  to  pierce  each 
other's  hearts,  they  were  urged  to  the  fray  by  red-hot 
rods  pressed  upon  their  naked  bodies ;  this  horrid 
chapter  that  defames  the  human  race,  came  from  the 
absence  of  the  justice  which  measures  pain  by  our 
own  pain,  and  happiness  by  om-  own  happiness;  that 
justice  that  travels  from  self  outward,  and  makes  the 
sorrow  of  others  ours,  and  their  happiness  our  happi- 
ness. In  the  reign  of  Trajan,  ten  thousand  men  thus 
fought.  But  what  is  it  that  has  dispersed  that  mighty 
throng  of  Roman  spectators?  What  is  it  that  has 
made  that  marble  house,  whel'e  eighty  thousand  peo- 
ple could,  by  scores  of  stairs  and  arches,  assemble  or 
disperse  in  a  half-hour,  a  solitude,  and  has  permitted 
the  rains  of  many  centuries  to  wash  out  the  blood 
marks,  or  hide  them  with  ivy  and  flowers?  The  re- 
ligion that  began  at  Nazareth,  and  taught  man  to 
measure  another's  rights  and  sufferings  by  his  own; 
this  is  the  philosophy  that  at  last  made  the  gladiators 
throw  down  their  swords,  and  take  each  other's  hands 
in  presence,  not  of  a  colosseum,  but  of  a  world.  The 
howl  of  wild  beasts  died  away  from  the  amphitheater 
when  this  rule  was  spoken  by  the  Savior.  Beneath 
the  liberty  of  to-day  that  has  spread  from  America 
to   England,    and   from    England   to    France   and    even 


4:2  THE  GOLDEN  RULE. 

Spain,  and  which  has  made  kingdoms  differ  little  from 
republics;  beneath  the  freedom  of  slaves;  beneath  the 
public  education  of  children,  and  the  emancipation  of 
woman,  flows  this  simple  principle,  "What  ye  would 
that  men  should  do  to  you,  do  ye  even  so  to  them." 
Such  is  the  full  acquaintance  man  possesses  with  self 
—  such  a  quick  and  perfect  realization  has  he  of  his 
own  aversion  to  pain  and  love  of  happiness,  that  civ- 
ilization may  date  its  rise  in  the  hour  when  man 
brings  cases  of  duty  up  to  this  court  in  his  own 
bosom. 

In  order,  however,  to  render  the  golden  rule  suc- 
cessful, it  is  necessary  that  one  have  within  him  the 
cultivated  attributes  of  manhood,  for  if  his  self  be 
that  of  a  savage  he  can  learn  little  within.  But  the 
truth  is,  the  civilized  world  has,  for  the  most  part,  a 
noble  consciousness,  capable,  in  occasional  hours,  of 
talking  in  the  language  of  the  sky.  Rough  though 
the  life  may  be,  there  is  within  a  full  acquaintance 
with  the  meaning  of  such  words  as  pain,  grief,  joy, 
sadness,  purity,  repentance.  Is  there  a  heart  where 
this  sunshine  and  shadow^  do  not  play  like  alternate 
day  and  night?  All  possess  this  form  of  supreme 
assize  in  their  own  bosom,  and  hither,  Jesus  Christ 
says,  bring  your  business  life,  hither  bring  your  ene- 
mies,  hither    your    friends,    hither    bring    the    orphan 


THE  GOLDEN  RULE.  43 


child,  hither  the  father,  hither  those  without  God  and 
hope,  and  decide  upon  duty  in  the  sanctuary  of  your 
own  heart,  where  your  own  anguish  or  joy  has  in 
past    days    spoken    to    you    with    trumpet    or   angelic 

tongue. 

I  am  unable  to  fathom  the  financial  causes  and  efiects 
that  come  here  and  there  in  the  course  of  time. 
Like  the  wind  they  come  we  kuow  not  whence,  and 
go  we  know  not  whither.  But  while  this  whole 
question  is  too  large  and  too  obscure  for  the  pulpit, 
and  foreign  to  its  office,  yet  after  a  financial  storm 
has  come,  and  thousands,  almost  millions,  of  the  poor 
feel  its  hard,  cold  breath;  when  riches  do  not  difier 
much  from  bankruptcy,  we  do  know  that  the  time. has 
come  for  the  golden  rule  to  assume  the  person  of 
an  angel  and  move  about  the  streets  from  landlord 
to  tenant,  from  bank  to  street,  and  from  tenant  to 
landlord  and  street  to  bank,  from  palace  to  hovel, 
until  the  darkness  shall  be  made  light  by  a  reciprocity 
that  began  in  Christ  when  the  human  rose  to  the 
divine.  It  is  probable  God  disturbs  the  surface  of 
society  constant!}^  by  pestilence  or  fire  or  revolutions, 
that  his  children  may  not  live  wholly  for  food  and 
furniture,  but  may  be  brought  face  to  face  with  the 
noble  principles  of  soul,  and  thus  be  transplanted  from 
a  market-place  to  the  world   of  mind  and  spirit.      If 


^^  THE  GOLDEN  RULE. 


linancial  success  were  tiie  chief  end  of  man,  then  ail 
these  defeats  in  the  battle  of  gold  would  be  a  loss  of 
labor  and  life  indeed ;  but  if  so  be  that  the  chief 
thing  about  man  is  his  soul's  character,  then  any 
calamity  that  abates  material  progress  and  throws  the 
heart  back  upon  itself  as  related  to  man  and  God 
must  be  accepted  as  an  act  of  a  benevolent  Father 
of  all.  It  is  said  that  the  dusty  droughts  which  once 
in  a  few  years  dry  up  the  grasses,  grains  and  flowers, 
and  make  a  garden  land  a  desert,  are  Nature's  beneli- 
cent  resort,  that  the  earth  being  thus  ridden  of  all  her 
moisture,  the  sunshine  and  air  may  enter  the  labyrinth 
and  re-make  b}^  their  new  agencies  those  cells  to  which 
the  roots  of  the  verdure  will  descend  in  the  subsequent 
years,  and  over  that  desert  of  one  summer  there  will 
wave  seven  summers  of  richer  harvest.  In  the  history 
of  morals  and  religion  there  comes  a  similar  phenom- 
enon in  each  group  of  years.  Something  called  a  public 
calamity  spreads  over  country  and  home,  making  a 
desert  of  what  was  yesterday  a  paradise ;  but  if  we 
assume  that  the  chief  end  of  man  is  the  attainment 
of  a  noble  character,  then  what  are  these  calamities 
but  hours  in  which  the  great  human  world  is  stripped 
of  its  vanity,  that  its  soul  may  lie  open  to  the  air 
and  sunlight  of  a  kind  God  coming  with  the  music 
of    laws    for   which   the    soul   was   made,  and  without 


THE  GOLDEN  RULE.  45 

which  it  is  hopeless  poverty.  These  sublime  laws  of 
life,  of  which  the  golden  rule  is  only  one,  ought  to 
lead  us  all  to  feel  that  o^rand  must  be  the  ideal  destiny 
of  man  when  Christ  has  flung  down  beneath  him 
such  laws  of  ascent,  pointing  to  the  perfection  of 
heaven.  If  the  ladder  that  sprang  up  before  Jacob  in 
his  dream,  pointing  up  to  the  stars,  with  angels  on  its 
steps,  was  any  hint  to  him  and  all  w^ho  read  the 
dream  that  there  is  a  world  above  this,  then  these 
laws  of  human  action,  so  lofty,  and  bringing  a  con- 
sciousness so  sweet,  should  seem  as  it  were  a  ladder 
with  angelic  spirits  upon  the  steps,  waving  their 
hands  upward  and  pointing  out  the  destiny  of  the 
soul. 


RIGHTEOUSNESS 


SERMON  III.         ^ 


RIGHTEOUSNESS. 


"  Thy  right  hand  is  full  of  righteousness."— Ps.  JfS :  10. 

ny /TEX  of  learning,  such  as  Mill  and  Comte  and 
^'^  Spencer,  and  men  of  science  have  said  so  much 
of  late  that  seems  to  separate  human  virtue  from  rela- 
tion to  God,  that  I  desire  this  morning  to  speak  upon 
the  apparent  relation  between  religion  and  a  correct 
life. 

It  is  probable  that  no  other  important  terrn  reveal- 
ing an  attribute  of  God  and  man,  occurs  so  often  in 
the  Scriptures  as  this  word  righteousness.  As  in 
science  there  are  great  terms,  such  as  development, 
causation,  agencies,  constantly  recurring,  showing  the 
central  spirit  of  the  science ;  so  in  religion  at  large, 
the  word  righteousness  is  constantly  upon  the  page. 
It  must  follow  from  such  a  perpetual  presence  of  this 
term,  that  religion  and  righteousness  are  closely  allied. 
God,  who  is  the  source  of  religion,  is  seen  by  the 
inspired  poet  to  have  his  right  hand  full  of  righteous- 


5^  RIGUTEOUSNESS. 

ness.  In  the  classic  pictures  of  the  gods,  some  held 
in  the  right  hand  an  oli\^e  branch,  some  a  scepter,  Nep- 
tune a  trident,  Apollo  arrows.  Mercury  a  wand,  Min- 
erva a  scroll,  Venus  a  golden  apple.  It  is  a  proof  of 
superiority  in  this  picture  from  the  Psalmist  that  his 
Deity  seemed  to  reach  forth  a  right  hand  full  of  right- 
eousness. 

Our  theme  this  morning  will  be  the  fellowship  be- 
tween righteousness,  or  virtue,  and  religion. 

The  word  right  comes  through  all  the  civilized  lan- 
guages without  much  change,  from  an  old  classic  rad- 
ical, signifying  straight  or  true  to  a  rule.  When  the 
old  mason  found  his  work  answering  to  the  plumb  line, 
he  said  rectus  /  or  answering  to  his  level  or  to  his  mo- 
del, he  said  rectus.  The  significance  of  the  term  is 
therefore  found  in  the  matei'ial  world,  w^here  something 
is  found  to  conform  to  a  perfect  standard.  The  ter- 
mination, "  ous,"  always  means  full  of,  abounding  in, 
from  the  Latin  osus,  as  dolorosus,  full  of  grief,  undo- 
sus,  covered  with  waves.  Hence  righteousness  signifies 
abounding  in,  conformity  to  a  moral  ideal,  full  of  cor- 
respondence to  some  perfect  rule  of  action  or  being. 
Religion  has  a  less  clear  significance.  When  we  have 
said  that  it  is  a  spiritual  binding  of  man  to  God,  we 
have  said  all  we  know  about  the  word's  primitive  sig- 
nificance.    Its   actual   import  is  that   of  human  friend- 


RJOHTEOOSNESS.  51 


ship  toward  God.  The  relation  between  man  and  man^' 
is  called  society;  between  man  and  country  is  called 
patriotism;  between  man  and  beauty  is  called  taste; 
between  man  and  God  is  called  religion./  Hence  reli- 
gion is  perceived  to  be  a  sentiment,  w^hile  righteous- 
ness is  a  mind  and  soul  full  of  action,  conformed  to  a 
perfect  or  lofty  rule.  The  relation  of  religion  and 
righteousness  at  once  becomes  evident.  Religion  helps 
the  mind  to  a  higher  ideal,  and  helps  it  to  a  desire 
and  power  to  reach  in  action  such  an  ideal  in  thought. 
Just  as  one's  love  of  country  helps  the  mind  to  study 
the  best  path  of  conduct  toward  that  country,  and 
then  urges  forward  to  action,  so  religion  helps  the 
mind  to  become  a  student  of  righteousness,  and  then 
helps  to  the  spiritual  power  that  will  perform  deeds 
abounding  in  this  fitness  to  the  ideal. 

In  order  to  appreciate  the  topic  ofiered  to  your 
thoughts  to-day,  it  will  be  necessary  for  you  to  recall 
the  history  of  unrighteous  conduct,  if  only  you  could 
do  so.  But  in  thinking  of  this  dark  sea  that  has  sur- 
rounded mankind,  you  perceive  at  once  that  there  is 
no  line  long  enough  to  sound  the  gulf  of  cruelty,  of 
dishonor,  that  lies  between  man's  origin  and  the  present 
hour.  History  resounds  with  the  clanking  of  chains 
and  the  screams  of  the  dying.  Force  was  the  original 
guide  of  mankind.      Whether  Carthage  or  Babylon  or 


5^  RI0HTE0U8NESB. 


Jerusalem  should  be  destroyed,  and  their  citizens  put 
to  death,  were  always  questions  of  ability  to  do  so. 
No  ancient  sword  was  ever  stayed  while  it  had  power 
to  kill,  or  victim  to  be  killed.  The  number  of  human 
beings  killed  by  Julius  Caesar  is  placed  at  one  million 
two  hundred  thousand,  and  the  number  of  lives  put  to 
death  by  the  Conquerors  of  Jerusalem  is  placed  at 
three  million  men,  women  and  children.  From  the  ear- 
liest history  to  the  most  recent  centuries,  the  terrific 
events  of  the  world  have  not  been  seen  where  pesti- 
lence or  flood,  or  earthquake  or  famine  came,  but 
where  man  marched,  carrying  chains  for  the  slaves, 
deeper  poverty  for  the  poor,  deeper  pain  for  the  suffer- 
ing. Man  has  been  a  worse  foe  to  man  than  have  all 
the  beasts  of  the  forest,  and  all  the  storms  or  famines 
or  plagues  in  nature. 

The  scientific  minds  are  trying  to  show  that  the 
human  race  has  been  living  upon  this  earth  for  a 
half  million  years,  coming  up  slowly  in  all  that  long 
flight  of  time.  But  I  am  not  sure  that  Mercy  ought 
not  to  hope  all  such  estimates  to  be  false,  for  when  we 
remember  what  man  has  been  in  the  historic  period  we 
cannot  help  hoping  that  the  six  thousand  years  are  all, 
and  that  there  were  no  myriads  of  ages  before  of  cru- 
elty still  less  merciful,  of  barbarism  still  more  barbarous. 
Unrighteousness  is  the   great   foe  of  the   human  race. 


RIGHTEOUSNESS.  53 


Issuing  from  private  life  and  injuring  our  neighbor,  or 
issuing  from  the  bench  and  perverting  justice,  or  issu- 
ing from  the  legislature  and  grinding  a  community,  or 
issuing  from  a  pope  or  inquisition  and  torturing  the 
innocent;  or  issuing  from  a  throne  and  making  a 
nation  drip  in  blood,  unrighteousness  has  always  been 
the  chief  sorrow  and  disgrace  of  man's  career  upon 
earth.  If  one  will  sit  down  with  this  black  history 
open  before  him,  how  beautiful  upon  its  background 
will  all  deeds  of  righteousness  appear,  deeds  that  con- 
formed to  infinite  right  of  neighbor.  Whether  you 
recall  all  the  tenderness  there  has  been  in  the  world 
between  parents  and  children,  between  friends,  between 
rulers  and  subjects,  and  the  justice  of  law  and  of 
courts,  each  fact  will  reveal  at  once  the  divineness  of 
righteousness,  its  whiteness,  its  sweetness. 

In  estimating  the  worth  of  right,  it  is  a  great  mis- 
take if  you  limit  this  righteousness  to  the  obedience 
of  statute  or  common  laws.  Such  limitation  gives  an 
honest  man  or  a  law-abiding  citizen,  but  not  a  right- 
eous man,  for  righteous  means  abounding  in  right,  in 
fitting,  in  appropriate  action.  When  you  watch  by  the 
bedside  of  the  sick,  or  teach  the  ignorant,  or  comfort 
the  sorrowful,  or  give  to  the  helpless  poor,  you  are 
acting  righteously,  because  there  are  unwritten  laws  of 
humanity ;  there  is  an  ideal  law  out  of  the  statute,  and 


54  RIGHTEOUSNESS. 


above   the   statute,   to   which   the   deed   conforms,   and 
from  which  secures  its  title  of  righteousness. 

So  far  back  as  Sophocles  the  existence  of  such 
ideal  law  was  confessed.  The  beautiful  character,  An- 
tigone, unveils  the  fact  in  these  lines. 

No  ordinance  of  man  can  ere  surpass 

The  settled  laws  of  nature  and  of  God, 

Not  written  these  on  pages  of  a  book  ; 

Nor  were  tliey  passed  to-day  or  yesterday. 

We  know  not  whence  they  are,  but  this  we  know, 

Tha^i  they  from  all  eternity  have  been. 

And  shall  to  all  eternity  endure. 

When  the  humane  woman  of  our  age  reveals  the 
spirit  of  this  Greek  sister,  and  flies  to  the  hospital  of 
Scutari  or  Memphis ;  when  Grace  Darling  launches 
her  boat  upon  the  mad  water,  these  go  at  the  com- 
mand of  righteousness ;  for  the  human  heart  tossing  in 
anguish  in  the  hospital,  or  struggling  for  life  in  the 
sea,  is  surrounded  by  divine  right  to  the  helping  hand ; 
rights  which  may  escape  the  coarse  mind,  as  the  brute 
world  cannot  see  the  rainbow  nor  enjoy  the  flowers 
beneath  their  feet ;  but  rights  which  in  God  or  the 
soul  like  God,  are  as  vast  as  the  constitutions  of  States. 
When  the  great  Justinian  defined  justice  1500  years 
ago,  as  "  a  constant  and  urgent  wish  to  render  to  every 
one  that  which  is  his  own,"  did  he  mean  only  that  man 


RIGHTEOUSNESS.  55 


must  respect  landmarks  and  pay  debts  ?  Oh,  no  I  but 
when  a  man  is  struggling  for  life  in  the  waves,  your 
hand  ceases  to  be  your  own ;  it  becomes  partly  his. 
All  your  powers  for  the  moment  belong  to  him.  In 
the  agony  of  death  be  is  surrounded  by  tender  rights. 
Ko  other  definition  of  justice  would  have  been  handed 
down  by  the  bar  and  bench  for  2000  years,  as  worthy 
of  Justinian  or  of  legal  philosophy.  Between  such  a 
justice  and  righteousness  there  is  no  difference.  Hence 
we  perceive  that  righteousness  is  a  most  perfect  and 
most  delicate  perception  of  the  rights  of  others,  and  a 
constant  and  urgent  wish  to  bless  others  by  regarding 
these  manifold  rights.  Righteousness  is  a  confoiTuity 
to  all  the  large  or  tender  laws  of  humanity ;  true  to 
them  as  the  stars  to  their  path.  How  grand  a  prin- 
ciple in  human  nature  this  righteousness  may  be,  one 
may  read  by  looking  back  at  the  sacred  names  of  the 
past  and  by  seeing  that  the  most  sacred  are  those  that 
were  most  honorable.  From  Fabricius  to  Washington, 
from  the  blessed  Savior  down  to  the  honest  tinker 
Bunyan,  or  to  the  obscure  dairyman's  daughter,  there 
is  no  radiance  of  earth  so  bright  as  that  which  shines 
from  a  name  crowned  with  the  halo  of  justice.  The 
luster  of  riches,  of  office,  of  beauty,  soon  fades,  com- 
pared with  this  sun  of  virtue  set  eternally  in  the 
heavens. 


56  RIGHTEOUSNESS. 


Having  now  asked  your  attention  to  righteousness, 
to  its  significance  and  scope  and  beauty,  let  me  ask  you 
to  think  of  the  partnership  that  exists  between  it  and 
religion. 

/  Whether  there  could  be  high  and  correct  action  with- 
out religion,  I  am  unable  to  say.  I  know  of  no  data 
from  which  to  draw  a  conclusion.  The  world  has  never 
made  the  experiment,  for  religion  has  always  rushed  to 
the  field  so  early  in  all  national  life,  that  man  has  never 
been  able  to  know  what  he  might  have  done  without 
that  element.  Blair,  long  ago,  said :  "  You  may  discover 
tribes  of  men  without  policy  or  laws  or  cities  or  arts, 
but  not  without  religion."  Plutarch  had  said  the  same. 
"  That,  traversing  the  world,  you  may  find  towns  with 
out  walls,  without  letters,  without  kings,  without  coin, 
without  schools,  without  theaters ;  but  a  town  without  a 
temple  or  prayer  no  one  ever  saw."  Hence  it  seems  that 
the  nature  of  man  is  such  that  it  will  never  give  science 
an  opportunity  to  learn  how  perfect  a  righteousness  there 
might  be  without  the  influence  of  a  God.  And  as  for 
individuals,  it  is  perfectly  impossible  for  them  to  empty 
their  minds  of  the  influence  of  their  country  and  ances- 
tors ;  and  hence  if  you  could  find  an  atheist  who  has  a 
delicate  sense  of  justice,  it  would  be  impossible  to  deter- 
mine how  much  or  how  little  of  this  justice  had  come 
from   a   state  or  from  ancestry  that  were  more  deeply 


RIGHTEOUSNESS.  57 


religious.  '  The  experiment  of  human  uprightness  di- 
vested of  religion  can  never  hope  to  be  tried.  Xow, 
how  comes  it  that,  as  a  fact,  a  sense  of  righteousness 
and  a  belief  in  God  appear  simultaneously  and  invari- 
ably in  higher  forms  of  society.  Is  it  an  accident  ?  As 
well  might  we  say  that  the  sunshine  and  the  harvest- 
field  are  only  simultaneous  events,  a  meeting  by  acci- 
dent of  prairie  and  June.  The  real  truth  must  be  that 
the  appearance  of  God  and  human  honor  are  related 
as  inseparable  companions,  causing  each  other's  life  and 
growth.  God's  right  hand  is  full  of  righteousness,  and 
the  right  hand  of  righteousness  is  full  of  God.  As  a 
fact,  all  those  who  have  been  the  students  or  servants 
of  right  have  been  believers  in  God.  The  benevolent 
men,  the  judicial  men,  the  statesmen,  the  moralists,  the 
philanthropists  have  all  been  quite  free  from  the  atheism 
that  has  always  been  a  camp  follower  of  the  naturalist. 
It  is  the  chemist,  the  geologist,  the  physiologist  that 
most  generally  moves  away  from  the  idea  of  God,  be- 
cause the  measurement  and  weight  of  a  skull  will  no 
more  lead  to  an  ideal  spirit  than  will  the  weight  and 
measurement  of  an  apple  or  a  bunch  of  grapes.  Hence, 
from  the  day  when  Lucretius,  two  thousand  years  ago, 
wrote  his  poem  to  show  how  worlds  and  things  came, 
down  to  Huxley's  last  work,  the  tendency  has  been 
for  the  scientific  mind  to  pause  in  the  laws  of  develop* 


58  RIOHTEOUSNESS. 


ment,  and  for  the  personal  God  to  recede.  But,  mean- 
while, all  the  toilers  in  the  domain  of  right,  from 
Justinian  to  Webster,  from  Plato  to  Grotius,  from 
Solomon  to  Franklin,  have  been  near  and  firm  in  their 
friendship  for  the  Divine  idea.  The  bench  and  bar 
of  all  countries  and  cities  and  towns,  have  always  been 
allies  of  the  faith  in  a  God.  They  have  not  been  sec- 
tarians in  church  always,  because  their  habits  of  thought 
and  hunger  for  evidence  have  been  too  large  to  permit 
them  to  be  narrow  in  creed,  or  credulous  as  to  a  thou- 
sand dogmas ;  but  as  to  the  belief  in  a  God  of  infinite 
righteousness,  the  whole  judicial  multitude,  judge,  law- 
yer, statesman,  has  been  pervaded  by  the  religious 
element.  That  there  are  lawyers  who  have  only  used 
law  for  gain,  and  have  never  studied  deeply,  nor  loved 
deeply  their  profession,  is  evident ;  and  so  there  are 
clergymen  who  preach  only  for  a  reward  of  money; 
but  in  measuring  a  profession,  such  men  must  be  left 
out.  Doing  this,  we  affirm  that  the  legal  profession 
has  always  stood  firnir  by  the  idea  of  an  Infinite  God. 
If  you  will  cause  to  pass  under  view  the  great  names 
in  tlie  department  of  law  in  all  its  forms,  from  Jus- 
tinian to  Puifendorf  and  Blackstone,  however  large  you 
may  make  the  enumeration,  you  will  find  God  stand- 
ing in  the  midst  of  the  philosophy  of  each  individual. 
When  you  wish  to  find  righteousness  elaborated  from 


RIGHTEOUSNESS.  59 


dust,  generated  from  chemical  action,  you  must  go  to 
the  scientific  school;  but  when  you  desire  to  see  right- 
eousness derived  from  the  right  hand  of  God,  you  need 
not  go  to  the  clergy,  but  may  go  to  those  who  study 
justice,  and  cast  themselves,  not  upon  man's  dust,  but 
upon  man's  integrity.  "True  religion  is  the  founda- 
tion of  society."  This  is  not  from  Huxley,  but  from 
Edmund  Burke.  "Eeligion  is  a  necessary  element  in 
any  great  human  character."  This  is  not  from  Darwin, 
but  from  Webster.  We  mean  no  insult  to  the  students 
of  science,  but  mean  that,  as  a  fact,  the  study  of  law 
has  always  led  the  mind  toward  the  Deity,  and  has 
thus  revealed  the  causal  connection  between  right  and 
God.  Passing  away  from  the  facts  of  society,  let  us 
listen  to  reason,  pure  and  clear.  God  is  the  thought, 
the  Being  that  stands  as  the  ideal  of  right ;  and  hence, 
the  being  attached  to  God  by  that  chain  which  we  call 
religion,  stands  near  the  fountain  of  right,  and  receives 
its  flood  into  his  bosom.  God  is  the  only  ideal  of  right. 
This  being  so,  the  Christian,  whose  life  is  marked  by 
deeds  of  unkindness,  or  injustice,  or  indifference  to 
mankind,  has  no  religion  worth  the  name,  for  righteous- 
ness being  in  the  right  hand  of  God,  a  personal  religion 
without  a  personal  justice  is  impossible. 

When  the  Bible  says  righteousness  is  in  the  right 
hand  of  God,  it  indicates  that  that  is  the  chief  attribute 


60  EIGHTE0USNES8. 


of  the  Creator,  for  the  right  hand  is  the  emblem  of  power. 
Hence,  if  the  mortal  has  no  right  life,  he  has  no  relation 
«f  any  value  to  God ;  and  on  the  contrary,  if  his  life  be 
full  of  active  and  beautiful  justice,  he  is  not  far  from 
the  glorious  Kingdom  of  Heaven.  It  is  almost  epitaph 
enough  for  the  tomb  of  that  lawyer  who  died  a  few  days 
since  in  our  city,  that  his  life  was  righteous  to  an  extreme 
degree.  With  God  and  with  Nazareth  as  the  supreme 
ideal  of  right,  with  this  ideal  daily  approached  by  a  life- 
long study  and  application  of  the  principles  of  justice  at 
the  bar,  with  a  daily  increasing  hatred  of  injustice,  and 
growing  appreciation  of  its  power  to  injure,  and  of  the 
power  of  goodness  to  bless,  Mr.  Fuller  left  a  name  that 
will  always  seem  sheltered  from  hate  and  preserved 
for  love  by  that  Eight  Hand  on  High,  full  of  right- 
eousness. His  memory  is  wreathed  with  those  flowers 
of  justice  at  the  right  hand  of  his  God. 

"No  man's  religion,"  says  South,  "ever  survives  his 
morals."  This  must  be  so,  for  as  no  artist  could  paint 
or  carve  or  sing,  after  his  ideal  of  color  or  form  or  sound 
were  taken  away,  so  no  man  can  be  called  religious 
whose  ideal  of  righteousness  has  fallen  into  the  mire 
of  the  street.  We  can  always  measure  our  religion  by 
our  virtue.  God  is  the  embodiment  of  the  idea  of 
infinite  and  tender  justice.  Hence,  as  the  ocean  lies 
by  our  continent,  the  source  out  of  which  spring  our 


RIGHTEOUSNESS.  61 

rain  clouds,  that  water  the  fields,  and  the  warmth  that 
softens  our  climate,  so  the  name  of  God  lies  away  from 
man,  the  perpetual  source  of  all  justice,  all  love,  all 
charity  —  the  sea  out  of  which  rolls  virtue's  golden  cloud 
and  vernal  air. 

Always,  in  all  places,  I  think  there  is  to  be  found 
the  phrase  on  the  lips  of  suifering :  "  Help  me  for 
God's  sake;  for  God's  sake  give  me  food;  spare  my 
children  for  God's  sake."  TThat  is  the  meanine:  of 
this  old,  old  appeal  that  has  followed  human  life  every- 
where in  all  its  wanderings.  It  is  only  this.  There  is 
an  infinite  regard  for  rights  with  God.  With  Him  the 
slave  is  as  good  as  a  king.  A  little  child  hungering, 
a  poor  father  carried  to  the  dungeon  for  a  debt,  are 
fully  within  the  Infinite  pity.  He  has  laws  of  help  and 
of  release.  And  then  regarding  his  laws,  he  never 
slumbers  nor  sleeps.  The  Divine  heart  redoubles  the 
number  of  human  rights,  and  redoubles  the  watchful- 
ness over  these  laws ;  and  hence  "  save  me  for  God's 
sake"  is  a  petition  that  begs  us  tear  our  dead  hearts 
away  from  the  customs  of  men,  and  rush  into  the  riofht- 
eousness  at  the  right  hand  of  the  Infinite  One;  begs 
you  to  rise  above  the  human  level  and  look  down  upon 
me  and  upon  my  children  from  the  tender  skies  of 
God.  In  my  extreme  hour,  go  away  from  man  and 
look  upon  me  from  the  throne  of  the  Blessed  One. 


62  RIGHTEOUSNESS. 


Religion  creates  righteousness  by  leading  the  mind 
daily  up  to  this  sublime  ideal,  by  tearing  the  heart 
away  from  State  laws  or  customs,  and  placing  it  by  the 
Holy  One  above.  Where  the  slave  systems  prevailed, 
masters  took  their  stand  by  the  statute  law  of  the 
American  or  of  the  Mosaic  age,  or  both;  while  those 
who  overthrew  the  system,  took  their  stand  above 
State  law,  far  up  in  the  atmosphere  of  the  Almighty, 
and  the  slave  found  liberty  in  God's  right  hand. 

But  religion  has  still  another  relation  to  right- 
eousness. To  the  divine  ideal  of  right  it  adds  a 
varied  and  powerful  motive.  It  so  defines  life,  so 
limits  it  here,  and  expands  it  hereafter,  that  it  forces 
upon  us  the  conviction  that  nothing  but  a  tender 
righteousness  is  worth  living  for  in  these  years.  It 
assures  us  that  we  shall  soon  go  home,  «arrying  with 
us  no  gold,  no  office,  no  fame,  nothing  but  the  lines 
black  or  white  graven  in  the  spirit.  The  tomb  is 
before  us.  ISTature  has  seen  to  it  that  we  shall  not 
one  of  us  escape.  Science  tells  us  perhaps  we  shall 
pause  forever  there ;  but  religion  opens  other  gates, 
and  makes  this  life  a  mere  daybreak  of  the  matchless 

world   to    come.      But    its   unavoidable   theorv  is   that 

t/ 

the  spirit  only  shall  be  welcome  there.     All  the  rank 
and  gains  of  this  world  remain  behind.     The  soul  goes 


RIGHTEOUSNESS.  ^3 


with  its  character  alone,  as  the  bird  flies  to  the  tropics, 
taking  with  it  only  its  companions  and  its  song. 

]^ot  only  does  this  obliteration  of  these  material 
things  drive  the  human  race  logically  towards  charac- 
ter, but  the  solemnity  of  death,  and  the  grandeur  of 
immortality  transform  righteousness  into  a  sentiment, 
an  inspiration,  and  thus  make  the  heart  burst  forth 
into  good  deeds,  as  the  eye  of  parting  friends  fills 
with  tears.  When  the  passenger  ship  is  sinking  in 
mid-ocean,  the  hearts  about  to  perish  overflow  with 
kind  deeds  toward  each  other,  not  because  the  ideal 
of  justice  has  come  down  to  them  from  the  skies  only, 
but  because  the  receding  earth  and  the  rapidly  coming 
eternity,  have  exalted  their  ideal  into  a  profound  senti- 
ment ;  have  baptized  duty  in  a  sea  of  love  and  self- 
forgetfulness. 

By  holding  God  up  before  mankind,  religion  fur- 
nishes a  glass  in  which  one  may  always  see  a  jus- 
tice wider  and  tenderer  than  any  which  a  godless 
world  mioiit  OTve:  and  then  bv  the  exclusiveness  of 
the  life  to  come,  which  invites  nothing  from  earth  but 
its  virtue,  and  by  the  beautiful  solemnity  of  death  and 
immortality  which  transforms  justice  into  a  mother's 
love,  restless  and  measureless ;  religion,  thus  equipped, 
takes  her  stand  by  the  side  of  righteousness,  to  stand 
hand  in   hand,   inseparable   forever.      Hence    it   would 


/ 


64  EI0HTE0USNES8. 


seem  that  there  is  no  virtue  without  religion  and  no 
religion  without  virtue. 

The  inference  from  this  dependence  of  human  purity 
upon  God,  must  be  these: 

(1)  Christ,  in  unfolding  the  character  of  God,  in 
tearing  down  all  idols,  and  in  filling  the  Universe  with 
one  spirit,  infinite  and  blessed,  has  done  a  work  that 
should  bind  Ilim  upon  the  forehead  and  heart  of  man. 

(2)  If  God  is  the  ideal  of  justice,  it  becomes  the 
Christian  world  to  see  to  it  that  His  character  is  so 
painted  that  the  human  mind  can  look  up  to  Him  and 
feel  the  grandeur  of  the  ideal,  not  to  be  repelled,  but 
charmed  and  conquered.  The  Blessed  Name  must  be 
divested  of  the  charge  of  having  created  millions  of 
beings  in  order  that  he  might  damn  them  forever.  He 
must  be  so  set  forth  that  mothers  wdll  not  bow  in 
agonj  over  a  dying  child,  lest,  unbaptized,  it  might  be 
lost  eternally  from  their  bosom.  The  Blessed  JS'ame 
must  be  freed  from  the  whole  terrific  associations  of 
ages  of  cruelty  and  brute  force,  and  so  set  before  man- 
kind in  the  spotless  robes  of  justice,  that  the  human 
heart,  sinful  or  virtuous,  shall  always  feel  the  Divine 
presence  and  beauty ;  that  there  is  a  holy  and  powerful 
God  pervading  all  the  hours  of  time,  and  eternity. 

I  have  avoided  any  Bible  argument  this  morning, 
because  I  wanted  to  show  you  the  basis  of  the  Bible 


RIGHTEOUSNESS.  65 


itself.  There  is  a  common  impression  that  the  Bible 
has  created  a  religion  for  man  by  a  positive  enactment. 
This  is  partly  true ;  but  there  is  a  deeper,  broader 
truth;  and  that  is,  that  there  is  a  relationship  of  man 
and  God  that  has  created  the  Bible.  The  Bible  has 
not  made  religion,  but  religion  and  righteousness  have 
made  the  Bible.  Christianity  is  not  forced  upon  us. 
Our  own  nature  has  forced  it  up  out  of  the  spirit's 
rich  depths.  As  the  hidden  music  of  the  old  fabulous 
statue  became  vocal  when  the  sun  arose  each  morning 
upon  it,  so  when  Christ  came  he  only  awakened  to 
its  divinest  strains  a  music  whose  origin  was  far  above 
and  back  of  Bethlehem  and  the  cross. 


CHRISTIANITY    AND    DOGMA. 


SERMON  IV. 
CHRISTIANITY  AND  DOGMA. 


"  If  any  man  will  do  His  will  he  sliall  know  of  the  doctrine, 
whether  it  be  of  God  or  whether  I  speak  of  myself. "  — John  7 :  17. 

/^  HEIST  uttered  these  words  just  after  He  had 
^^  unfolded  what  seemed  to  Him  great  doctrines  in 
religion ;  and  fearing  lest  the  multitude  might  suppose 
He  was  only  uttering  sudden  human  conceptions,  after 
the  fashion  of  the  walking  philosophers,  or  raving  sibyls, 
He  informed  them  that  if  they  would  practice  His 
teachings  they  would  discover  them  to  be  great  laws 
of  God.  I  have  read  this  declaration  of  Christ,  not  so 
much  because  it  suggests  how  mankind  may  determine 
which  doctrines  are  true,  but  also  what  truths  are  worthy 
of  being  honored  with  the  name  of  a  doctrine  of  God. 
The  truth  of  an  idea,  and  the  value  of  an  idea,  are 
two  different  things,  and  this  text  is  announced  before 
you  this  morning  because  it  submits  to  us  a  method 
of  learning,  not  only  the  truth  of  propositions,  but  the 
relative  value  of  propositions.      If  mankind  can  leam 


TO  GURISTIANITT  AND  DOGMA. 

hy  experience  what  doctrines  come  from  God,  then  tlie 
lawful  inference  is,  that  the  great  doctrines  of  Chris- 
tianity are  open  to  the  test  of  this  human  experience; 
and  further,  that  those  propositions  which  are  beyond 
the  reach  of  man's  daily  life  were  not  in  Christ's  mind 
when  He  discoursed  to  men  upon  the  way  of  salvation. 
This  theme  of  remark  is  rendered  appropriate  in 
tliese  days  by  the  wonderful  amount  of  complaint  which 
is  heard  upon  all  sides  against  dogma,  and  by  the  almost 
equal  amount  of  defense  which  dogma  receives  at  the 
hands  of  the  champions  of  formal  theology.  The 
fiishionable  cry  of  the  worldling  is,  "  I  cannot  accept 
Bo  much  dogma ;"  and  the  reply  is  rather  too  fashionable 
in  some  quarters,  "  He  is  a  rationalist,  a  poor  infidel." 
At  least  we  have  come  to  days  when  the  complaint 
against  dogma  is  loud  and  long.  It  is  possible  that 
much  of  this  war  of  words  comes  from  a  conflicting  use 
of  terms,  that  the  skeptical  generally  mean  by  "  dogma  " 
certain  accidents  of  Christianity,  and  seldom  the  cardinal 
principles  of  religion ;  while  the  theological  minds 
understand  by  "dogma"  all  the  doctrines  of  their 
faith,  and  hence  rashly  use  the  word  "  infidel  "  regarding 
many  who  are  as  near  as  themselves  to  the  form  and 
soul  of  Jesus  Christ.  It  will  generally  be  found,  upon 
conversing  with  these  enemies  of  dogma,  that  they  are 
thinking  of  the  decrees  of  the  Church  more  than  of 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  DOGMA.  71 


any  of  the  great  laws  of  Christianity ;  and  instead 
of  gazing  at  the  Son  of  God  and  of  man,  are  entangled 
amid  the  blue  laws  of  New  England,  or  the  hundreds 
of  deliverances  of  the  councils  of  the  Protestants  and 
old  Catholics.  Often  when  the  German  free-thinking 
young  man  is  declaiming  against  dogma  he  is  thinking 
only  of  the  Puritan  Sabbath  and  of  the  hostility  of  the 
Church  to  his  drinks  and  recreation. 

That  there  is  a  vast  amount  of  opposition  to  the 
whole  of  Christianity  and  religion  is  painfully  time,  but 
there  is  also  a  vast  amount  of  ill-will  developed  by,  and 
exhausted  upon,  ideas  that  have  come  from  men  rather 
than  from  God,  or  at  least  have  been  expanded  by  sec- 
tarian force  into  a  significance  far  beyond  the  warrant 
of  Infinite  wisdom.  When  we  remember  that  there 
was  a  time  —  and  perhaps  that  time  includes  the  pres- 
ent practice  —  when  some  branches  of  the  Scotch  Church 
had  run  the  number  of  their  decrees  up  into  the  thou- 
sands ;  and  when  we  remember  what  attitudes  our  home 
denominations  have  taken  regarding  amusements,  or 
music,  or  street-cars  on  Sunday,  or  dress,  or  psalmody, 
or  communion,  or  immersion,  we  ought  to  feel  that  a 
wicked  world  may  often  speak  disrespectfully  of  dogma 
without  being  either  deficient  as  to  common  sense  or 
hopeless  as  to  religion.  If  our  Protestant  world  does  not 
furnish  us  with  adequate  illustration  of  what  the  world 


T2  GIIlilSTIANITT  AND  DOGMA. 

generally  means  by  dogma,  we  can  look  across  at  the 
Roman  Catholic  spectacle,  and  see  in  their  Immaculate 
Conception  and  Infallibility  and  Eeal  Presence,  speci- 
mens of  the  kind  of  doctrine  which  the  much-deceived 
world  has  at  last  come  so  greatly  to  fear.  Kot  only 
for  the  wicked  world's  sake,  but  for  the  Church's  own 
sake,  for  its  growth  in  greatness  of  mind  and  in  happi- 
ness, it  should  make  such  distinction  between  the  fun- 
damental laws  of  religion,  which  may  be  tried  by  expe- 
rience, and  the  notions  which  are  wholly  beyond  such 
a  test,  as  to  free  itself  from  the  necessity  of  expelling 
a  man  who  sings  a  human  composition,  as  in  the  case 
of  Mr.  Stuart,  or  of  withholding  fellowship  from  those 
who  may  not  have  been  immersed,  or  who  may  not 
have  enjoyed  the  hand  of  a  Bishop  upon  their  forehead. 
While  such  things  are  constantly  transpiring,  we  need 
not  wonder  if  a  wise  age,  looking  on,  says,  not  "  We 
are  weary  of  religion,"  but  "  We  are  weary  of  dogma." 
Unless  by  dogma  the  complaining  world  means  the 
accretion  which  has  been  cast  upon  the  shores  of  the 
Church  by  the  turbulent  sea  of  debate  and  sectarian 
interest,  its  fault-finding  has  no  logical  basis.  After  a 
man,  or  a  handful  of  men,  have  conceived  the  idea 
of  rallying  around  some  notion,  such  as  Immersion,  or 
Decrees,  or  Ability,  or  Inability,  that  notion  soon  comes 
to   represent   capital,  and   pastorates,  and   schools,  and 


GHRI8TIANITT  AND  DOGMA.  73 

seminaries,  and  publications,  and  holds  then  all  the 
power  of  an  empire  de  facto.  It  must  be  against  these 
Church  governments  founded  in  the  couj?  d^etat  of  in- 
dividuals, that  the  outside  multitude  is  aiming  its  chief 
assault,  for  that  men  of  intelligence  shonld  declaim 
against  doctrine  in  Christianity,  is  beyond  belief.  As 
none  of  these  cultivated  skeptics  come  to  Nature  and 
ask  her  to  produce  a  floral  world  without  any  laws  of 
rain  and  soil  and  sunshine,  so  they  certainly  do  not  come 
in  their  rational  moments  to  Christianity,  and  require 
that  the  vast  world  of  its  morals  and  spirituality  shall 
grow  up  without  possessing  any  laws  of  cause  and 
eflect.  Does  the  boasting  rationalism  become  super- 
natural at  last,  and  expect  the  realm  of  virtue  and 
piety  to  come  from  nothing,  and  depend  upon  no- 
thing, and  possess  no  possible  order  of  sequence?  We 
conclude  otherwise,  and  submit  the  proposition  that 
no  man  can  preach  Christianity  without  being  a  doc- 
trinal preacher,  and  no  man  can  acquire  a  Christian  or 
a  religious  heart,  except  by  the  obedience  of  doctrine. 
Doctrine  sustains  the  same  relation  to  Christian  char- 
acter and  hope  that  mechanical  law  sustains  to  the 
cathedral  of  St.  Paul,  or  that  the  law  of  sound  sustains 
to  the  church  chimes  or  the  music  of  the  many-voiced 
organ.  The  attempt  to  separate  Christianity  in  any 
way  from  its  own   announced   doctrines,  is   as   pitiable 


T4  CHRISTIANITY  AND  DOGMA. 

a  weakness  as  it  would  be  to  invite  engineers  to  bridge 
a  vast  river  by  emotional  action,  wholly  separate  from 
any  creed  of  mechanics. 

Having  reached  the  inference  that  Christianity  is 
founded  upon  doctrine,  that  doctrines  are  its  state  laws, 
and  that  all  preachers  must  be  doctrinal  preachers  and 
all  Christians  doctrinal  Christians,  let  us  look  now  into 
the  quality  of  these  doctrines  which  all  must  teach  and 
obey.  When  we  shall  have  found  these,  we  shall  have 
escaped  the  thing  which  the  wicked  world  fears  or  sus- 
pects—  a  group  of  human  dogmas  supporting  some 
Church  de  facto,  secured  by  a  usurpation  in  some  dark 
night,  and  shall  have  found  what  the  wicked  world 
ought  to  love  —  a  Church  de  jure,  founded  by  the 
Almighty  and  sanctioned  by  the  longings  of  the  soul 
and  by  the  experience  of  all  generations.  In  seeking 
for  these  doctrines  we  may  permit  Christ,  the  Founder 
of  Christianity,  to  supersede  reason  and  point  out  a 
path  for  his  followers. 

But  the  moment  He  has  uttered  our  text  —  that 
"  Those  which  men  can  subject  to  experience  are  the 
doctrines  that  be  of  God,"  reason  rises  up  and  unites 
its  voice  with  that  of  simple  authority.  The  doctrines 
of  Christianity  are  those  which  may  be  tried  by  the 
human  heart.  This  is  declared  often  in  the  Divine 
Word.     From   the  words  of  Solomon,  "  Fear  God  and 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  DOGMA.  "I^ 

keep  His  command ments,  for  this  is  the  whole  diitj 
of  man,"  to  the  Saviour's  \Yords  of  the  text,  from  the 
psalm,  "  O  taste  and  see  that  the  Lord  is  good,"  to 
the  deeply  spiritual  passage  where  Christ  compares 
Himself  to  bread  to  be  eaten  by  the  soul,  there  is  one 
prominent  idea  —  that  the  doctrines  of  religion  are 
those  which  can  be  converted  into  spiritual  being,  mak- 
ing the  spirit  advance  from  childhood  to  the  statue 
of  Christ.  With  such  a  measuring  line  in  the'  hand  it 
would  seem  easy  for  any  one  to  discover  which  are  the 
great  laws  of  Christianity,  and  what  are  only  the  facts 
or  alleged  facts  of  the  religion.  The  difference  between 
a  fact  and  a  law  is  perfectly  obvious,  but  yet  it  is  often 
necessary  to  remind  mankind  of  things  that  are  obvious. 
For  example,  singing  of  psalms  and  immersion  may 
have  been  actual  facts  of  the  Bible  times.  It  is  most 
probable  immersion  was  the  fact  of  the  ^ew  Testament, 
and  yet  neither  of  these  facts  can  be  made  a  Church 
law  or  a  Church  doctrine,  because  it  is  not  possible 
for  human  experience  to  distinguish  here,  and  to  taste 
and  see  that  the  Lord  is  any  more  truly  good  through 
immersion  than  through  sprinkling,  or  through  a  psalm 
of  David,  than  through  the  Christian  hjTnns  of  TVesley 
or  Watts.  In  the  great  empire  of  experience  it  is  the 
spirit  in  the  baptism  or  in  the  song  only  which  can  so 
much   as   exist,  and   hence   it   is  the  worshipful   spirit 


76  CIIIIISTIANITY  AND  DOGMA. 

alone  which  becomes  a  part  of  religion's  great  law. 
But  when  the  Bible  says,  "He  that  believes  shall  be 
saved,"  it  unfolds  a  doctrine ;  for  human  experience, 
taking  up  this  faith,  is  wholly  transformed  thereby,  as 
a  desert  is  transformed  by  rains  and  sun  into  a  paradise. 
Faith  is  man's  relation  to  Christ,  just  as  the  student's 
love  of  knowledge  is  his  relation  to  all  study  and 
wisdom.  Faith  is  the  union  between  the  cluster  and 
the  vine',  between  the  rose  and  the  nourishing  earth. 
Separate  the  rose,  and  it  withers  —  never  reaches  its 
bloom.  Hence  he  that  believeth  not  is  damned,  because, 
the  chain  that  should  have  bound  him  to  God  being 
broken,  his  moral  world  sinks  and  goes  out  in  the 
darkness,  like  the  virgin's  oilless  lamp  when  the  joy 
of  the  marriage  feast  was  near.  If  God  is  the  life  of 
the  world,  then  the  soul  that  separates  itself  from 
Him  by  unbelief  would  seem  to  have  broken  the 
chain  of  perpetual  being.  Hence  some  infer  the  anni- 
hilation of  the  wicked,  others  their  loss  of  happiness, 
rather  than  of  existence.  Be  the  details  what  they 
may,  faith  is  not  a  doctrine  like  that  of  Immersion  or 
of  Decrees,  an  idea  beyond  appreciation ;  but  is  one 
which,  like  the  law  of  food  and  drink,  lies  wholly 
within  the  daily  life  of  the  soul.  Such  also  are  the 
ideas  of  repentance  and  conversion,  and  of  a  medi- 
atorship,  and   of  the  divineness  of  Christ.     These  can- 


CHRISTIANITT  AND  DOGMA.  77 

not,  except  by  tlie  most  thoughtless  or  else  the  most 
unjust,  be  counted  as  dogmas  in  the  contemptuous 
sense,  for  they  are  seen  at  once  to  be  phases  of  human 
experience  —  forms  of  its  daily  life,  of  its  regrets,  of 
its  reforms,  of  its  confidence,  of  its  hopes.  A  world 
which  demands  of  men  apology  when  insult  is  offered; 
a  public  reason  which  asks  that  a  political  rebel  shall 
become  penitent  and  shall  become  converted  as  to  the 
national  flag,  ought  not  to  banish  penitence  and  con- 
version from  the  empire  of  God,  that  great  fatherland 
of  the  soul. 

Appealing,  therefore,  to  the  range  of  human  expe- 
rience, we  must  declare  faith,  repentance,  and  conver- 
sion, to  be  unavoidable  laws  of  Christianity,  not 
having  come  into  it  by  any  council  of  Catholics  or 
Protestants,  but  direct  from  God,  w^ho  poured  into  the 
human  mind  its  reason,  and  into  the  heart  its  love. 
Not  so  easily  can  we  persuade  Keason  to  admit,  as  a 
matter  of  public  experience,  the  idea  of  a  mediator. 
We  waive  the  inquiry  as  to  Reason's  voice,  because  we 
are  seeking  not  what  the  public  confesses,  but  what 
Christianity  itself  holds,  that  may  perchance  be  a 
matter  of  experience,  may  be  "  tasted "  and  thus  be 
seen  to  be  good.  Under  this  head,  of  doctrine  open 
to  experience,  we  must  include  the  notion  of  a  media- 
tor, for  we  find  millions  of  hearts  glad  in   the  feeling 


78  CURISTIANITY  AND  DOGMA. 

that  there  is  a  daysman  between  them  and  God. 
Millions  who  have  passed  away,  have  gone  after  a 
joyful  life  in  this  mediator  to  a  peaceful  death  in  Him. 
The  hymns  of  many  ages,  from  the  tombstones  of  the 
Christian  catacombs,  where  a  few  sweet  words  were 
written,  to  the  "  Lamb  of  God,  I  come,  I  come,"  of 
our  century,  the  experience  of  man  as  to  the  idea  of 
a  mediator,  has  rolled  along  like  Dante's  vast  bird 
song  over  the  forest  of  Chiassi.  When  we  sing  the 
hymn,  "  Jesus,  Lover  of  my  soul,"  or  "  Kock  of  Ages, 
cleft  for  me,"  and  look  into  the  faces  of  those  borne 
upward  by  this  sentiment,  w^e  know  that  this  idea  of 
a  mediator  belongs  to  human  experience,  and  hence  is 
to  be  enrolled  among  the  doctrines  of  any  true  Chris- 
tianity. Let  us  approach  now  a  more  warmly  dis- 
puted proposition,  that  the  divineness  of  Christ  is 
something  essential  in  the  Christian  system.  The 
Trinity,  as  formally  stated,  cannot  be  experienced. 
Man  has  not  the  power  to  taste  the  threeness  of  one, 
nor  the  oneness  of  three,  and  see  that  it  is  "good." 
Man  cannot  "  do  His  will "  here,  and  "  know  of  the 
doctrine  whether  it  be  from  God."  It  is  not  conceivable 
that  any  one  will  pretend  to  have  experienced  three 
persons  as  being  one  person^  the  same  in  substance, 
and  at  the  same  time  equal.  This  doctrine,  therefore, 
belongs  to  a  simple  religion  of  fact,  and  not  to  one  of 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  DOGMA.  79 

experience ;  and  hence  the  distance  between  that  idea 
and  the  idea  of  faith  or  penitence  is  the  difference 
between  a  fact  and  a  perpetual  law.  But  while  human 
experience  cannot  approach  the  Trinity,  it  can  ap- 
proach the  divineness  of  Christ ;  for  if  Christ  be  not 
divine,  every  impulse  of  the  Christian  world  falls  to 
a  lower  octave,  and  light  and  love  and  hope  alike 
decline.  There  is  no  doctrine  into  which  the  heart 
may  so  inweave  itself  and  find  anchorage  and  peace 
as  in  this  divineness  of  the  Lord.  Hence,  Chris- 
tianity bears  readily  the  idea  of  three  offices,  and  per- 
mits the  one  God  to  appear  in  Father,  or  m  Son,  or 
in  Spirit ;  but  when  the  divine  is  excluded  from  Christ, 
and  He  is  left  a  mortal  only,  the  heart,  robbed  of  the 
place  where  the  glory  of  God  was  once  seen,  and 
where  the  body  was  once  seen  rising  from  the  tomb, 
and  where  the  words  were  spoken,  "  Come  unto  me 
ye  that  labor  and  are  heavy  laden,"  is  emptied  of  a 
world  of  light  and  hope.  The  doctrine  of  ''  our  Lord " 
in  the  New  Church,  which  makes  the  Son  of  Man  the 
place  in  the  universe  where  the  glorious  presence  of 
God  becomes  visible  like  the  colors  of  the  sun  dis- 
solved in  the  sunset;  the  doctrine  of  the  mystical 
pantheist,  that  Christ  overflows    like  a  cup  of  golden 

wine  too  full,  will  always  be  holier  in  usefulness  than 
any  being  coming  up  in  the  garments  of  only  a  poor 


80  CHRISTIANITY  AND  DOGMA. 

mistaken  hermit,  of  common  poverty  and  common 
frailty.  There  is  now  a  hymn,  popular  in  the  Meth- 
odist Church,  at  least,  which  begins  with  this  line : 

Follow  Me,  the  Lord  is  saying; 

and  the  still  more  popular  hymn, 

Thee  will  I  love,  my  joy,  my  crown, 
Thee  will  I  love,  my  Lord,  my  God ; 
Thee  will  I  love  beneath  thy  frown, 
Or  smile  beneath  thy  chastening  rod;  — 

both  of  which  were  written  by  a  mystical  pantheist, 
who  was  grand  in  his  conception  of  Christ  as  the  place 
w^here  the  Deity  held  encampment  for  the  joy  and 
guidance  of  man.  In  presence  of  such  experience,  to 
make  Christ  only  a  frail  human  is  to  strike  Christianity 
in  its  heart's  life;  and  hence  among  the  great  laws  of  the 
Christian  religion,  selected  by  the  measurement  of  our 
text,  we  must  include  the  divineness  of  our  Lord. 

As  a  result  of  the  principle  here  given,  that  the 
doctrines  of  Christianity  are  snch  as  may  be  tried  by 
experience,  hundreds  of  what  the  world  calls  dogmas 
are  excluded  from  any  enumeration  of  essentials,  and 
must  stand  only  among  the  facts,  or  alleged  facts,  of 
Christian  history,  and  not  among  religion's  laws  of  life 
and  salvation.  God  does  not  ask  you  to  taste  the  taste- 
less, nor  to  experience  that  which  lies  beyond  sight  or 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  DOGMA.  81 

sense;  but  to  cast  yourself  into  the  laws  of  faith  and 
conversion,  and  repentance,  and  love  and  hope,  and  of 
the  Divine  Lord,  and  upon  these  be  carried  by  a  new, 
recreative  experience  over  to  a  new  world  called  a  new 
heart  here — called  heaven  hereafter.  If  we  base  our 
religion  upon  a  revelation,  we  must  find  in  it  not  only 
the  existence  of  a  doctrine,  but  the  relative  value  of  a 
doctrine.  We  need  not  go  to  the  Bible  for  a  truth, 
and  to  man  for  an  estimate  of  the  value  of  the  truth. 
The  comparative  value  of  a  truth  is  to  be  learned  from 
the  guide  that  pretends  to  lead  the  human  race.  For 
example,  if  the  doctrine  of  faith  plays  a  more  prominent 
part  in  the  Bible  than  the  doctrine  of  infant  baptism, 
such  also  will  be  the  order  of  their  usefulness;  and  if 
the  three  offices  of  God,  as  Father  and  Redeemer  and 
Spirit,  are  made  more  prominent  than  the  idea  that 
these  three  persons  are  one  God,  then  what  mankind 
will  need  most,  and  use  most,  will  be  the  three  in- 
fluences, God  as  Father,  God  as  Savior,  God  as  Holy 
Spirit ;  and  what  he  may  make  secondary  is  the  enigma 
of  the  three  in  one,  for  why  make  prominent  things 
which  are  not  conspicuous  in  the  inspired  guide.  By 
this  estimate  of  Christianity,  illustrated  in  this  discourse, 
you  who  are  afar  off  and  unwilling  to  come  nearer  to 
this  Savior,  may  at  least  find  a  method  of  discrimi- 
nating between  a  Church  weighed  down  by  a  hundred 
6 


82  CHRISTIANITY  AND  DOGMA. 

declarations,  and  that  simple  religion  of  Christ  which 
announces  but  few  laws,  and  those  all  measurable 
by  your  own  experience.  Two  hundred  years  ago  a 
pietist  left  the  world  this  couplet : 

Lutherans,  Papists,  Calvinists  abound, 

But  tell  me,  where  are  Christians  to  be  found? 

The  answer  is  easy,  if  any  one  will  take  as  a  guide 
the  words  of  Christ,  which  limit  the  doctrines  to  those 
which  the  soul  can  taste.  A  thousand  sects  may  all 
be  Christian,  if,  far  away  from  their  Papacy  or  Calvin- 
ism, the  myriad  hearts  are  daily  living  amid  those 
doctrines  of  experience  which  are  few  in  number,  but 
which  are  the  modes  of  life  —  the  soil  and  rain  and 
simshine  of  religion's  flowery  fields.  If  you,  my  friend, 
are  giving  your  daily  thought  to  the  facts  of  Chris- 
tianity, and  are  standing  bewildered  to-day  amid  the 
statements  of  science  and  Genesis  about  earth,  or  its 
swarms  of  life,  recall  the  truth  that  your  soul  cannot 
taste  any  theory  of  man's  origin  —  cannot  experience 
the  origin  of  man,  whatever  that  origin  may  have 
been ;  but  when  you  come  to  the  law  of  love  to  man, 
and  to  the  highest  self-love,  then  you  have  come  to  a 
realm  all  responsive  to  your  touch ;  a  realm  beyond 
the  reach  and  inquiry  of  science,  and  the  same  yester- 
day,   to-day    and    forever.      Thus,    turning    from   only 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  DOGMA.  83 

events  to  the  laws  of  Christianity,  jou  will  find  in 
faith  and  love  and  hope,  and  in  the  presence  of  a 
Divine  Lord,  a  world  that  will  every  year  yield  thee 
such  a  harvest  of  virtue  and  joy  as  nothing  else  can 
ever  bring.  Oh,  skeptical  friend!  oh.  Christian,  too! 
fly  each  day  from  the  debate  over  simple  events  or 
entities  in  religion,  to  the  laws  of  being  that  may  be 
tasted  like  sweet  fruit,  and  which  confess  themselves 
at  once  to  belong  to  the  nature  of  God  and  man.  It 
is  in  this  realm  of  experience  the  millions  of  earth 
become  one.  From  this  sea  of  feelings  the  spirits  of 
men  rise  to  heaven  from  every  shore ;  like  golden 
mist,  up  from  it  ascended  the  form  of  Enoch  and  the 
chariot  of  Elijah,  Magdalen  and  John ;  up  from  this 
living  wave  went  the  dark  African,  and  the  Catholic 
and  the  Protestant  martyrs,  and  lifted  by  these  arms 
of  a  sweet  experience,  our  children,  who  have  wholly 
escaped  religion's  isolated  ideas,  rise  both  in  life  and 
death  toward  God,  the  immortal  trophies,  not  of  dog- 
mas, but  of  the  laws  of  faith  and  love  and  worship. 


EMOTION    AND    EVIDENCE. 


SEEMOX  Y. 
EMOTION  AND  EVIDENCE. 


"  I  love  them  tliat  love  me." —  Proxi.  8  :  16. 

"FT  must  be  only  the  affectionate  seekers  of  truth  that 
may  expect  to  find  the  hidden  prize.  The  Wisdom, 
personified  by  the  poetic  Solomon,  and  represented  as 
sitting  at  the  beautiful  gates  of  the  city,  an  angel 
of  Hght,  cried  out  to  the  passing  throngs,  "I  will 
give  my  stores  of  knowledge  to  those  who  will  give 
me  their  friendship."  From  this  scene  pictured  by  the 
oriental  past,  from  this  exchange  of  truth  for  love 
taking  place  between  an  angelic  form  and  the  unlet- 
tered multitude,  I  would  this  morning  draw  the  lesson 
that  the  mind  must  reach  religion's  creed  by  help 
of  the  heart.  It  is  not  intimated  thus  that  reason 
is  to  be  set  aside  and  that  we  are  all  to  evolve 
information  out  of  our  feelings,  and  become  inde- 
pendent henceforth  of  all  major  and  minor  premises, 
and  of  that  whole  circuitous  path  to  knowledge;  but 
with   the   value   of  the  rational   faculty  exalted    to   its 


^^  EMOTION  AND  EVIDENCE. 

highest  honor,  I  would  ask  you  to  believe  that  the 
affections  of  the  heart  must  constantly  aid  the  rational 
faculty,  if  it  is  expected  to  accomplish  much  in  the 
realm  of  moral  truth.  Wisdom  will  love  those  who 
love  her.  That  is,  there  must  be  something  in  the 
soul  that  will  welcome  what  words  she  may  speak. 
There  must  be  an  attuning  of  the  two  instruments, 
the  objective  truth  and  the  subjective  man,  such  that 
the  music  of  the  former  may  not  be  rejected  as  a  dis- 
cord, or  lost  because  inaudible.  It  has  been  discovered 
by  scientific  men  that  the  human  ear  is  capable  of 
hearing  only  those  tones  which  are  produced  by  some 
definite  number  of  vibrations  to  the  minute,  and 
hence  there  may  be  a  music  in  the  woods  and  in  the 
air  very  near,  but  in  tones  beyond  the  octaves  possible 
with  man,  and  hence  that  higher  fact  of  music  may 
not  love  man  or  reveal  itself,  simply  because  man  does 
not  love  it.  Leaving  the  region  of  fancy,  let  us  return 
to  the  region  of  fact,  and  there  we  do  without  doubt 
perceive  that  Wisdom  has  always  distributed  her  truths, 
not  to  those  who  hate  her,  but  to  those  who  love. 
She  fills  with  her  blessings  those  hands  which  are 
willingly  and  even  beggingly  raised.  Inasmuch  now 
as  the  domain  of  religion  is  the  last  place  in  which 
men  will  confess  this  proposition  to  be  true,  let  us 
come   to   this    department   only    after    having    marked 


EMOTION  AND  EVIDENCE.  89 

elsewhere  the  habits  of  love  and  doctrinej  or  the  heart 
and  the  creed. 

You  have  all  just  seen  a  great  wisdom  in  a  certain 
province  of  study,  and  a  great  love  in  the  same  province 
come  to  a  grave,  and  disappear.  E^ature  told  her  secrets 
of  birds,  trees,  fishes,  sponges,  and  sea-weeds,  to  this 
illustrious  inquirer.  Along  the  Amazon  river  and 
amid  all  the  chains  of  mountains,  and  on  all  the  sea 
shores,  the  angel  of  wisdom,  which  Solomon  says  was 
with  God  when  He  gave  the  sea  its  decree,  stooped  to 
this  mortal  whom  the  world  mourns,  and  whispered 
story  after  story  of  the  earth's  forms  and  changes  and 
life.  Between  this  subjective  mortal  and  the  objective 
wisdom,  friendship  was  the  perpetual  days-man  bringing 
together  the  world  of  nature  and  the  world  of  soul. 
This  naturalist  only  illustrates  the  nature  of  man  and 
asks  us  to  confess  that  all  the  children  of  earth  who 
have  found  at  last  any  vast  information,  all  the  old 
artists  and  poets  and  statesmen  and  philosophers  from 
the  most  remote  Zeno  to  the  most  near  Guizot  or  Mill, 
have  found  their  stores  of  truth  by  following  the  lead 
of  a  positive  love  for  the  domain  of  their  toil.  The 
many-colored  wisdom  they  found  loved  them  because 
they  loved  it.  All  the  success  of  Angelo  and  Watt  and 
Morse  and  Fulton  came  not  in  antagonism  to  their 
hearts,  but  under  its  welcome  and  smile. 


90  EMOTION  ANB  EVIDENCE. 

Now,  with  such  phenomena  before  us  we  cannot  but 
conclude  that  those  special  ideas  called  "  religion  "  will 
become  truths  or  doctrines,  only  by  help  of  the  heart's 
friendship  at  least.  Unless  men  can  reach  some  wish 
in  their  favor,  some  partiality  for  them,  it  is  hardly  to 
be  supposed  that  mere  logic  will  ever  force  them  upon 
individual  or  public  practices.  The  power  of  the  mind 
to  reject  conclusions  not  welcome  to  the  feelings  is 
enormous.     Hence  the  couplet  — 

"  Convince  a  man  against  his  will, 
He's  of  the  same  opinion  still." 

because  the  feelings  create  and  color  our  world  for 
us,  and  where  they  do  not  come  to  the  task,  our 
world  goes  back  to  chaos  again.  The  fact  that  feel- 
ings often  carry  mon  away  from  truth,  or  beyond 
tmth,  and  thus  have  originated  the  expression  that 
"  The  wish  is  father  of  the  thought,"  only  shows  the 
almost  divine  power  of  the  feelings,  and  that  if  they 
can  make  even  a  dream  seem  real,  how  real  must  a 
truth  become  by  the  help  of  their  enchantment?  If 
there  be  some  attribute  of  soul  which  can  make  a 
shadow  seem  a  substance,  that  is  what  we  all  need  to 
guard  a  substance  from  becoming  a  shadow.  In  an 
age  w^hich  is  boasting  of  great  logical  power,  and 
which  is  laughing  at  all  those  emotional,  thoughtless 
mortals  who  have  a  worship,  and  a .  faith,  and  a  hope 


EMOTION  AND  EVIDENCE.  91 

of  immortal  life,  let  the  experiment  be  tried  of  a  pure 
rationalism  brought  to  bear  upon  a  fine  art  instead  of 
upon  a  religion,  and  let  the  result  be  marked.  Go  to 
the  musician  and  tell  him  to  put  aside  all  emotion, 
demand  that  he  join  some  "  philosophical  society,"  and 
there,  by  a  purely  mental  process,  determine  whether 
what  he  hears  is  really  music  or  only  a  less  gross  dis- 
cord; require  him  to  justify  his  conception  of  pleasing 
sound,  detain  him  over  the  argument  whether  all 
sound  is  not  music,  or  all  music  is  not  simply  noise, 
and  all  the  while  tell  him  that  nothing  is  so  unmanly 
as  any  feeling  upon  the  subject,  that  to  have  feelings 
is  to  part  with  philosophy ;  and  at  the  end  of  a  brief 
schooling  of  this  kind  you  may  have  added  to  the 
quantity  of  rationalism,  but  you  have  robbed  one 
home,  at  least,  of  its  music.  This  illustration  is  not 
wholly  fanciful,  for  the  great  Stuart  Mill  confessed 
that  in  his  boyhood's  love  of  music  there  came  up 
constantly  the  fear  that  an  end  would  soon  be  found 
to  the  possible  variations  of  the  eight  notes,  and  then 
no  more  new  music  would  ever  be  possible.  Thus  the 
shadow  of  an  extreme  rationalism  began  to  fall  upon 
a  world  of  beauty,  checking  the  impulse  of  the  heart. 
You  may  perceive  in  the  world  a  practice  com- 
mended, which,  in  religion,  is  by  the  same  world  often 
condemned.      Thus   we   are   told   that   the   boy  Henry 


92  EMOTION  AND  EVIDENCE. 

Claj  so  loved  the  pleasure  and  the  fame  of  oratory 
that  he  practiced  the  speaker's  art  out  in  the  fields, 
and  worked  among  the  rows  of  corn  to  the  music  of 
oratorical  tones  and  long  sentences ;  and  this  prepos- 
session of  the  heart  is  greatly  praised  as  being  the 
power  which  carried  him  from  the  farm  to  the  senate. 
Without  this  prepossession,  it  is  confessed,  the  country 
would  have  no  such  name  in  its  catalogue  of  loved 
ones  as  that  of  Henry  Clay.  But  if  that  early  bias 
of  heart  was  valuable,  it  must  have  been  so  for  defi- 
nite reasons,  and  permanent  reasons,  in  the  form  of 
permanent  laws.  Those  laws  must  have  been  these: 
1.  That  prepossession  was  the  stimulus  of  industry. 
It  made  all  toil  along  the  given  path  sweet,  and  a 
pleasure  more  than  toil.  2.  It  also  kept  the  mor- 
row roseate,  so  that  the  future  of  his  countty,  and 
the  possible  future  of  himself,  lay  before  him  in  such 
sunlight  as  to  drive  away  from  around  his  feet  the 
shadow  of  poverty,  and  to  feed  his  heart  upon  the 
manna  of  a  far  off  success.  The  enthusiasm  of  this 
youth  did  not  contradict  logic,  did  not  so  load  the 
young  man  down  with  follies  and  superstitions  that 
it  was  necessary  for  a  rigid  philosophy  to  go  to  him 
in  after-life  and  strip  him  of  his  sentimental  frippery 
and  lead  him  back  to  a  life  without  dogma  and  with- 
out  prejudice.      The   truth   was   exactly   the   opposite. 


EMOTION  AND  EVIDENCE.  93 

Tlirougli  the  soil  of  that  enthusiasm  the  actual  ideas 
of  oratory  had  all  sprung  up.  They  became  visible 
in  the  rich  atmosphere  of  love.  Loving  those  that 
love  her  the  doctrines  of  oratory  had  fully  revealed 
themselves  to  him  who  had  first  given  her  his  heart. 
Thus  the  wish  is  often  father  of  the  thought,  not  only 
of  a  false  thought,  but  most  commonly  of  the  true 
one.  In  order  for  a  truth  to  rise  up  in  its  real  beauty 
and  show  us  its  dimensions,  and  repeat  »to  us  all  its 
evidence,  it  is  absolutely  essential  that  it  stand  forth 
in  the  world  of  our  sympathy.  The  indifiference  of 
what  is  called  reason  will  not  answer.  Truth  will  not 
hang  her  pictures  in  such  a  cold,  feeble  light.  The 
atmosphere  of  good  will,  like  that  which  in  Angelo 
revealed  the  truths  of  his  art,  or  in  Clay  the  truths 
of  his  oratory,  must  envelope  religion  also  and  help 
her  cardinal  ideas  from  the  formless  void  up  into  the 
world  of  life  and  light. 

It  is  possible  that  the  poverty  of  evidence,  confessed 
in  this  world  to  exist  as  to  vast  moral  propositions,  comes 
from  the  fact  that  earth  was  made  not  for  a  wicked 
but  for  a  virtuous  race.  Where  the  heart  would  always 
have  been  helping  state  and  restate,  and  to  treasure  up 
the  evidence  of  God  and  a  future  life,  the  whole  moral 
outlook  would  have  been  clear  as  the  existence  of  the 
sun  in  the  sky.     It  is  possible  that  sin,  in  its  form  of 


9-i  EMOTION  AND  EVIDENCE. 


hostility  or  indifference,  has  in  all  its  long  history  done 
nothing  but  destroy  evidence  by  destroying  the  senti- 
ments that  made  it  visible ;  has  taken  away  a  world 
by  taking  away  the  atmosphere  which  rendered  it  a 
part  of  man's  universe,  within  the  reach  of  his  eye  or 
ear.  Paul  speaks  of  things  which  are  "spiritually 
discerned,"  and  hence  there  must  be  many  things  in 
religion  which  lade  from  the  sight  of  reason  because 
they  have  fallen  from  the  spirit's  tenderness  —  the  sight 
of  its  love.  In  the  public  journals  recently  there 
was  an  account  of  the  suicide  of  a  boy  of  eleven  years. 
He  had  been  so  cruelly  beaten  by  his  father  in  all  these 
eleven  years  —  for  infancy  had  been  no  protection  —  that 
the  gloom  of  death  became  less  terrible  than  the  anguish 
of  torments  -here.  The  particulars  are  too  horrible  to 
be  given.  Were  you  empowered  to  transform  that 
monster  into  a  man,  you  would  not  dare  attempt  it  by 
logic  alone.  To  read  the  statutes  of  the  whole  world 
and  the  ethics  of  all  casuists,  from  Confucius  to  William 
Penn,  would  be  powerless  compared  with  the  privilege, 
if  you  could  secure  it,  of  leading  that  father  back  to  a 
childhood  of  his  own,  and  there  in  some  kind  home 
lay  afresh  the  foundations  to  his  soul.  What  he  needs 
is  a  new  soul,  all  out  and  out,  in  which  the  joyful  sports 
of  children  would  echo  like  music,  and  where  a  tear 
from  one  of  them,  caused  by  himself,  would  not  burn 


EMOTION  AND  EVIDENCE.  95 


their  cheek  so  much  as  his  own  heart.  Out  of  this  new 
spiritual  state  the  laws  of  parent  and  child  would  rise 
right  up  as  visible  as  great  verdure-covered  mountains. 
In  this  atmosphere  of  love  the  laws  of  man  to  man 
would  not  be  enlarged  by  a  false  mirage ;  they  would 
be  seen  in  vast  outlines,  because  they  are  not  atoms, 
but  have  all  the  magnificence  of  worlds.  In  our  peni- 
tentiary, a  few  weeks  since,  there  took  place  an  event 
which  has  sickened  the  community  into  silence.  There 
are  now  and  then  deeds  done  which  discourage  tongue 
and  pen,  and  make  the  pulpit  and  press  silent,  not  from 
indifference,  but  from  sorrow  and  hopelessness.  ]^ow, 
if  you  were  compelled  to  begin  the  education  and 
Christianizing  of  the  person  or  persons  most  deeply 
guilty  of  that  wretched  act,  would  you  not  ask  of  God 
the  power  to  lead  those  task-masters,  not  among  the 
world's  argument,  but  among  its  scenes  of  love  ?  Lead 
them  to  where  Christ  is  proclaiming  men  to  be  brothers ; 
to  where  the  hungiy  are  being  fed,  and  the  sinful  for- 
given ;  to  where  AVilberforce  is  freeing  slaves,  or  the 
American  world  opening  up  its  liberty  and  its  grand 
asylum,  and  then  out  of  this  deep  study  and  love  of 
man  ask  them  to  see  the  right  of  the  poor  convict  to 
his  life,  and  future  hopes  of  home  and  liberty.  Out 
of  such  a  tender  prepossession  of  soul,  the  truth  of  duty 
in  all  its  details  would  flame  forth  in  illumined  letters. 


96  EMOTION  AND  EVIDENCE. 

full  of  justice,  because  full  of  humanity.  That  any  man, 
be  he  a  despot  in  a  prison,  or  in  a  kingdom,  should  be 
able  to  perceive  intellectually  the  rights  of  his  subjects 
without  himself  possessing  a  humane  heart,  is  as  impossi- 
ble as  that  an  artist  should  rise  to  fame  by  a  judgment 
alone,  his  heart  being  perfectly  empty  of  any  love  of 
the  beautiful. 

From  these  illustrations,  taken  from  the  life  of 
mankind  at  large,  I  must  conclude  that  belief,  the 
realization  of  truth  in  the  moral  world,  is  dependent 
upon  the  friendship  of  the  heart.  The  exact  sciences 
proclaim  their  ideas  to  all,  and  ask  no  favor  of  any 
kind.  Be  you  well  or  ill,  happy  or  sad,  young  or  old, 
when  the  exact  science  declares  that  the  world  is  round, 
and  that  water  is  heavier  than  the  air,  you  have  no 
choice  but  to  accept  of  the  words.  Science  asks  no 
friendship.  But  not  so  in  morals.  Her  truth  will  love 
only  those  who  love  her.  Announcing  a  God,  she 
expects  your  heart  so  to  welcome  the  Infinite  Father 
that  out  of  your  affection  will  grow  up  a  sacred 
imagination  which  will  help  yon  feel  the  presence 
and  goodness  of  this  blessed  One.  This  must  be  the 
reason  why  there  seems  present  in  all  nations  the 
traces  of  a  religious  instinct.  The  love  of  the  beau- 
tiful is  not  more  universal  than  the  instinct  of  reli- 
gion, and  therefore  we  may  conclude  that  as  the  love 


EMOTION  AND  EVIDENCE.  97 

of  the  beautiful  is  in  all  places  urging  mankind 
forward  toward  the  truths  of  that  world,  and  every- 
where gathers  up  the  evidence  and  confirms  it,  so 
in  the  world  of  religion  man  must  set  forth  with 
a  friendship  upon  religion's  side,  and  permit  it  to 
help  him  amass  the  evidence  and  reach  the  verdict 
of  God  and  immortality.  The  proud  intellect  may 
despise  this  statement  of  the  case,  and  may  say  that 
the  true  mind  will  scoi'n  a  creed  that  rests  in  any 
degree  upon  any  emotion,  but  it  is  not  my  eftbrt  to 
discover  an  ideal  method  of  religious  conviction,  but 
to  inquire  what  is  the  existing  method  of  earth. 
Could  we  who  are  here  to-day  in  the  dim  twilight  of 
faith,  and  who  expect  to  go  to  the  tomb  in  the  same 
shadow,  be  permitted  to  reshape  the  evidences  of 
Christianity,  doubtless  we  should  make  it  demonstra- 
tive, and  have  men  learn  that  there  is  a  heaven 
just  as  they  learn  the  sum  of  ten  tens,  or  the  height 
of  a  hill,  or  the  breadth  of  a  valley.  But  in  the 
absence  of  such  power,  which  might  at  best  prove  a 
calamity,  all  that  remains  is  for  us  to  mark  the  actual 
quality  of  our  moral  realm,  and  doing  this  we  can- 
not but  perceive  that  its  evidence,  its  truth,  its 
general  creed,  are  inseparably  joined  to  a  friendship 
pointing  to  the  God  which  the  evidence  seeks.  There 
is  many  a  thinking  man  now  in  the  late  years  of  his 
7 


^^  EMOTION  ANl)  EVWENVE. 

life  who,  could  he  return  to  youthful  days  again,  and 
carry  with  him  the  wisdom  gained  by  a  long  pilgrim- 
age of  doubt  and  sorrow,  would  not  again  attempt  to 
learn  of  the  existence  of  God  and  a  future  life  from 
"  Butler's  Analogy "  and  "  Paley's  Design "  alone,  but 
abandoning  those  pages  and  going  into  the  deep- 
shadowed  wood  where  the  voice  of  cold  argument 
might  be  turned  into  music  by  the  diviner  sentiment 
of  the  soul ;  or  following  the  footsteps  of  men  and  of 
little  children  to  their  sanctuary,  would  find  in  their 
voices  and  upturned  faces  a  feeling  within  that  shapes 
and  adorns  and  redoubles  the  evidences  of  religion. 
If  God  made  man  upright,  then  out  of  that  original 
piety  there  would  have  rolled  up  each  day,  truth 
for  the  day,  clear  and  welcome,  clear  because  welcome. 
But  if  man  subsequently  fell  into  a  sinful  state,  then 
with  this  spiritual  separation  the  evidence  would  each 
century  become  less  in  quantity  and  weaker  in  powder, 
and  we  should  after  a  time  witness  a  world  in  which 
t}ie  heart  of  a  sinner  would  be  boimd  to  only  the 
evidence  of  a  saint.  Depravity  would  be  seeking  con- 
viction from  proof  that  was  arranged  for  a  saint. 
Whether  our  world  is  not  just  such  a  one  I  leave  to 
your  personal  conjecture.  Be  such  its  history  or  not, 
the  lesson  seems  plain  that  no  simple  criticism,  no 
simple  logical  force,   will    meet  the   nature  of  religion 


EMOTION  AND  EVIDENCE.  99 

or  the  nature  of  man,  or  the  wants  of  the  soul. 
Somewhere  in  the  heart's  depths,  and  at  some  time  to 
you  and  me,  there  must  spring  up  such  a  willingness 
that  religion  be  true,  and  such  a  loving  hope  and  trust 
as  will  make  a  just  balance  in  which  the  great  moral 
world  can  be  weighed.  To  our  ill-will  it  will  give  no 
response.  To  our  absolutely  unprejudiced  soul  it  will 
say  just  what  music  would  say  to  the  indifferent,  or 
what  June  would  say  to  the  insensate  Indian;  but  to 
the  heart  seeking  wisdom  it  will  come;  to  the  one 
knocking,  the  door  of  this  paradise  will  open  wide. 
We  say  all  these  things,  while  remembering  well  that 
thousands  have  looked  upon  their  feelings  as  the  voice 
of  God,  and  have  defied  all  logic,  and  have  professed 
to  speak  and  act  wholly  by  inspiration.  There  is  a 
sect  now  in  this  country  whose  members  do  nothing 
except  by  an  impulse  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  They 
despise  reason,  and  prove  the  existence  of  God,  and 
even  the  divinity  of  Christ,  by  their  consciousness; 
but  this  is  an  abnormal,  insane  condition  of  feeling, 
and  counts  nothing  against  the  principle  of  our  dis- 
course, that  the  profoundest  reason  can  toil  justly  in 
morals  only  along  the  path  of  good-will.  Eeason  must 
always  toil,  and  be  led  forth  each  day  to  new  con- 
quests. In  a  world  where  truth  and  error  are  mingled 
like  the  elements  in  a  chaos,  reason  is  a  spirit   brood- 


100  EMOTION  AND  EVIDENCE. 

ing  upon  the  face  of  the  waters.  But  this  reason 
must,  in  its  work,  be  the  most  just.  It  must  use 
its  evidence  in  the  atmosphere  where  it  was  placed 
by  nature.  It  should  be  the  first  instinct  of  reason 
to  be  reasonable,  and  hence  if  moral  evidence  seems 
to  ask  for  the  assistance  of  human  sentiment,  and 
cannot  endure  ill-will  and  indifference,  let  reason  then 
toil  upward  from  a  base  of  love  and  kind  wishes  and 
hope. 

It  must  be  the  fact  that  moral  proof  asks  for  a 
spiritual  prepossession  that  will  explain  why  so  many 
coming  to  old  age  or  to  their  death  chambers  feel  a 
perfectly  new  conviction  regarding  that  future  world 
so  long  in  shadow  It  is  not  fear  that  then  makes 
eternity,  with  its  joy  or  sorrow,  seem  real,  for  rarely 
to  adult,  educated  minds,  does  coming  death  bring 
fear.  It  is  the  empire  of  the  heart  that  sends  forth 
these  closing  convictions  about  the  hereafter.  The 
pride,  the  glory  of  logic,  the  pressure  of  skepticism, 
the  vanity  of  self,  are  all  fading  away  under  the  sway 
of  silver  hair,  or  of  disease  which  plucks  from  man 
all  his  vanity ;  and  in  the  new  atmosphere  of  love  to 
God  and  man,  the  evidences  of  religion  stand  forth, 
not  in  an  exaggerated  form,  but  life-size,  in  the  first 
sunlight  they  ever  knew.  In  those  last  moments  or 
last  years  of  life,  the  heart  begins  to  look  onward,  and 


EMOTION  AND  EVIDENCE.  101 

to  hope  that  the  existence  about  to  be  surrendered 
here  will  be  sweetly  resumed  beyond,  and  that  the 
dear  ones  which  all  mature  lives  have  gathered  about 
them  in  a  love  true,  and  tried  by  long  experience,  will 
rejoin  it  not  long  hence ;  and  out  of  this  solemn  and 
closing  heartbeat  issues  not  a  dream  of  one  who  is 
delirious,  but  the  just  vision  of  an  intellect  which  has 
at  last  escaped  its  own  life-long  shadows. 

Now,  the'  practical  lesson  from  these  thoughts  is 
this:  The  evidences  of  Christianity  must  be  weighed 
by  a  mind  not  averse  to  virtue,  not  averse  to  the 
being  and  presence  of  a  just  God;  by  a  mind  not 
wholly  wedded  to  exact  science,  but  full  of  tender 
sympathy  with  man,  and  pity  for  him  if  his  career  of 
study  and  love  is  to  terminate  at  the  grave ;  by  a 
mind  capable  of  looking  away  from  the  market-place 
and  from  the  pleasure  of  sense,  and  of  beholding  the 
vast  human  family  flashing  their  angelic  wings  afar 
off  beyond  these  humble  times  and  scenes.  The  evi- 
dences of  Christianity  must  be  weighed  by  a  soul 
capable  of  sadness  and  of  hope.  IS^ot  simply  must  the 
books  of  theologians  be  read  for,  and  the  books  of 
skeptics  against,  the  doctrines  of  faith,  but  the  genius 
of  earth,  its  little  children,  its  joys,  its  laughter,  its 
cradle,  its  marriage  altar,  its  deep  love  crushed  often 
in  its  buddino:,  its  final  white  hair,  its  mio:htv  sorrow 


102  EMOTION  AND  EVIDENCE. 

embracing  all  at  last  from  its  Christ  to  its  humblest 
child,  in  its  black  mantle,  must  be  confessed  in  its 
inmost  heart;  then,  when  to  such  a  spirit  the  com- 
mon arguments  of  religion  are  only  whispered,  the 
sanctuary  of  God  would  seem  to  be  founded  in  eter- 
nity, and  men  here  and  angels  elsewhere  will  throng 
its  blessed  gates.  While  the  singer  of  Israel  stood  out 
in  the  sinful  street  and  saw  the  prosperity  of  the 
wicked,  his  feet  had  well  nigh  slipped,  but  when  he 
went  into  the  sanctuary  of  God  it  seems  that  a  new 
vision  came  from  amid  the  incense  and  the  song.  Not 
in  hours  of  argument,  my  friends,  but  in  hours  of  pen- 
siveness  or  solitude,  the  best  estimates,  the  most  just, 
will  be  made  by  you  all  who  have  reached  the  noon 
of  life. 

"  In  some  hours  of  solemn  jubilee, 
The  massive  gates  of  Paradise  are  thrown 
Wide  open,  and  forth  come,  in  fragments  wild, 
Sweet  echoes  of  unearthly  melodies, 
Aa  odors  snatched  from  beds  of  amaranth." 


GOOD    WORKS 


SERMON  YI. 
GOOD  WORKS. 


"  Ye   see,  then,  that  by  works  a  man  is  justified,  and   not   by 
faith  only." — James  1:24.. 

"YTXHOEYEE  should  undertake  to  find  any  one 
doctrine  in  wliich  all  the  essentials  of  salva- 
tion should  be  contained,  would  have  before  him  a 
task  difficult  indeed.  The  wants  of  the  soul  are  many 
and  varied.  The  variety  and  richness  which  prevail  in 
nature,  with  its  seasons,  with  its  myriad  species  of 
plants  and  animals,  with  its  waters  that  reveal  difierent 
colors,  and  with  its  stars  which  shine  in  different 
lights,  are  an  emblem  of  what  may  be  expected  in 
the  spirit  world ;  and  hence  in  any  plan  of  salvation 
that  may  spring  up  in  the  spiritual  confines,  there 
should  be  expected  some  such  variety  of  action  and 
of  doctrine  as  would  harmonize  with  a  varied  soul 
and  a  varied  world.  There  was  once  a  sect  —  and  they 
have  not  all  gone  from  earth  yet  —  who  were  called 
Solifidians,    because    they    expected    salvation    because 


106  GOOD    WOliKS. 


they  believed  Christ   would   bestow,  or  had  bestowed, 
upon  them  that  great  boon.     This  sect  had  condensed 
the  whole  Bible  into  a  single  sentence,  and  all  conduct 
into  a  mental   operation  called   belief,  and  hence  their 
chief  virtue  must  have  been  that  of  placid  expectation. 
In   hours    of  gratitude    over  the  office  of  a  Mediator, 
there  often   seems  nothing  in  the  world  but  Him  and 
His    cross.      Comparatively,    all    else    fades ;    but    the 
reverie  of  the  Christian  is  soon  broken  by  the  words, 
""  Why  stand  ye  here  idle  ? "  "  Blessed  are  the  pure  in 
Leart,"  and  "  Ye  see  that  by  works  a  man  is  justified, 
and   not   by   faith   only ; "   and    in  a  moment    he   finds 
himself  in  the  midst  of  a  varied  world,  rich  and  beau- 
tiful as  the  tropics  —  a  world  in  which  faith  in  Christ 
is  of  vast  moment,  but  does  not  lay  waste  the  whole 
continent.     The  question  how  the  mediatorial   office  of 
Christ  may  do  all,  if  man  must  also  do  good-  works,  is 
just    such    a    question   as    is    sprung    upon    us   by   the 
human  will.      How  can  God  accomplish  His  will,  and 
at  the  same  time  permit  man  to  possess   an  independ- 
ent, self-determining  volition  ?     I   know   of  no  method 
by  which  we   can   make   works    necessary  or   essential 
in  a  kingdom  of  perfect  redemption  or  perfect  forgive- 
ness ;  but  this  difficulty  we  pass  by,  and,  as  in  the  case 
of  the    will,    would    cast    ourselves    upon    the    evident 
facts    of   Christianity    and    of   common    life;    and    the 


GOOD   WORKS.  107 


facts  are  that  the  Bible,  from  first  to  last,  insists  upon 
personal  righteousness.  Common  life,  or  society,  teaches 
us  also  that  a  salvation  that  did  not  insist  upon  virtue 
would  be  the  destruction  of  society  in  all  its  temporal 
interests.  If  heaven  could  be  sustained  and  peopled 
by  faith  without  good  works,  earth  at  least  could  not; 
it  would  be  compelled  to  resort  to  moral  lives. 

The  doctrine  of  salvation  by  faith  must  therefore  be 
60  stated  and  held  as  to  leave  society  its  friend,  trusting 
faith  rather  than  fearing  it,  and  must  be  so  stated  and 
held  as  to  leave  the  other  doctrines  of  Christianity  some 
reason  of  existence.  In  their  jo}'  over  the  newly- 
discovered  idea  of  salvation  by  the  mediation  of  Christ, 
some  of  the  divines  around  Luther,  with  Luther  himself, 
declared  that  no  amount  of  sin  would  imperil  the  soul 
that  should  possess  this  marvelous  faith.  Thus  at  one 
stroke  the  doctrines  of  regeneration,  and  repentance, 
and  sanctification,  and  love  to  man  are  cut  down  as 
cumberers  of  the  ground.  The  Bible  is  rediiced  to  one 
sentence ;  its  grateful  music  is  silenced  into  one  note,  to 
be  sounded  evermore  upon  a  single  string.  This  cannot 
be  wondered  at,  however,  for  the  tendency  of  zealous 
minds  is  always  to  narrow  the  universe,  and  make  it 
all  flow  in  the  channel  of  their  almost  accidental  thought 
or  taste.  There  are  always  those  with  whom  some  one 
doctrine  has  eclipsed  all  other  truths  of  the  Bible.     The 


108  GOOD   WORKS. 


Second  Adventists  possess  souls  full  of  little  except  the 
immediate  coming  of  the  Lord.  Hundreds  of  times 
have  they  stood  in  white  robes  awaiting  for  His  coming 
in  the  clouds  in  great  glory.  Thus  all  through  the 
history  of  religion  the  limitations  of  the  individual,  the 
atomic  quality  of  the  soul,  has  always  revealed  itself  in 
its  selecting  an  atom  only  of  God's  vast  truth.  In 
religion  we  all  verify  the  legend  of  Achilles,  that,  when 
an  infant,  having  been  placed  in  a  room  full  of  objects, 
he  picked  out  a  sword.  Thus,  his  soul  being  only  an 
atom,  it  was  able  to  appreciate  only  an  atom  of  the 
varied  world.  He  passed  by,  as  though  they  did  not 
exist,  the  implements  of  art  or  industry,  the  emblems 
of  music,  poetry,  eloquence,  perhaps  the  ivory  images  of 
the  gods,  and  drew  forth  the  emblem  of  death  and 
injustice.  In  that  far-off  age  one  of  the  wise  men 
declared  philosophy  to  be  a  study  of  death,  thus  telling 
us,  not  the  whole  truth,  but  that  the  clouds  and 
solemnity  of  the  grave  had  so  impressed  this  one  mind 
that  to  him  there  was  nothing  worthy  of  profound 
logic  except  the  last  hour  of  human  life.  Thus  we  all 
go  down  to  the  great  truths  of  God  as  a  child  would 
go  to  a  river  bank,  as  if  to  empty  it  with  its  silver  cup ; 
but  after  all  our  efforts  there  flows  onward  the  mighty 
stream  unconscious  of  the  vain  mortals  upon  the  bank. 
Each    individual  is  so  much  less  than  reliction,  so  infi- 


GOOD  WORKS.  109 


nitely  beneath  his  own  Christianity,  that  we  are  bound 
to  feel  that  after  all  his  wanderings  in  its  confines  there 
will  still  be  almost  whole  continents  upon  which  his 
footstep  has  not  been,  whose  flora  has  never  greeted 
his  eye,  whose  bird-song  has  never  delighted  his  ear. 
It  is  in  such  a  confession  of  the  narrowness  of  individuals 
we  can  best  find  explanation  of  such  an  exaltation  of 
"belief"  over  personal  virtue  as  has  been  and  is  yet 
to  be  seen  in  many  places,  in  many  minds  and  hearts, 
and  in  many  systems  also,  in  the  great  •Christian  Church. 
Many  systems  of  doctrine  are  the  work  of  individuals  — 
places  where  some  finite  one  has  sat  down  to  measure 
the  infinite,  and  has  supposed  the  universe  to  be  all 
estimated  and  expressed  when  he  had  only  been  study- 
ing his  own  mind  and  heart  in  the  mirror  of  his  inno- 
cent fancy.  Then  have  come  the  councils  to  adopt  this 
measurement,  and  then  have  followed  hundreds  of  years 
in  which  all  measuring  rested,  and  in  which  all  went 
daily  and  repeated  the  words  of  the  individual  whom 
they  had  adopted  as  monarch  while  living,  and  as  saint 
when  dead.  Whether  there  will  ever  be  a  creed  that 
will  do  justice  to  the  Bible,  one  cannot  venture  to 
predict.  The  world  is  capable  of  making  great  progress, 
and  it  loves  always  the  forward  movement ;  hence  no 
one  can  determine  what  may  be  the  ultimate  result 
of  this  capability  and  this  longing,  but  up  to  our  brilliant 


110  GOOD  WORKS. 

century  all  the  estimates  of  Bible  doctrine  have  come 
far  short  of  conveying  to  mankind  the  lessons  taught 
in  the  Holy  Scriptures.  The  Arminian  creeds  fall  short 
of  expressing  the  divine  side  of  the  universe,  while  the 
Calvinistic  creeds  come  short  upon  the  human  side ;  the 
Episcopacy  has  perhaps  too  much  of  the  external,  the 
Puritan  too  little ;  the  old  Baptist  and  Covenanter  con- 
tained too  much  of  perdition,  the  liberals  too  much  of 
paradise;  so  that  upon  all  sides  the  scene  is  as  though 
we  had  all  rushed* forth  to  see  the  whole  universe  with 
our  one  sense  of  sight,  or  to  take  up  an  ocean  in  the 
hollow  of  our  hand.  It  ma}^  be  that,  as  the  Bible 
contains  the  many  sides  of  an  infinite  thought,  the 
world  will  always  be  happy  to  drink  of  the  stream,  but 
will  never  be  able  to  count  its  drops,  or  see  all  the  smiling 
of  its  waves ;  and  that  it  will  be  necessary  for  us,  and 
for  all  who  come  after  us,  to  hold  our  creeds  in  our 
hands  indeed,  and  then  to  say  of  religion,  as  Newton 
said  of  the  universe :  "I  have  only  gathered  a  few 
shells  upon  the  beach."  The  religion  of  man  will  always 
be  larger  than  any  measuring  soul. 

This  long  discussion  may  now  prepare  us  to  hear 
the  words  of  St.  James  which  so  conflict  with  the 
Solifidian  words  of  our  creeds,  and  of  the  sacred  Book, 
elsewhere  in  its  pages.  The  conflict  is,  however,  only 
am  on  2^   mortals  ;   it  is  not  in  the  book,  if  we  confess 


GOOD  WORKS.  HI 


the  many-sidedness  of  the  world  of  morals,  but  when 
men  so  define  faith,  or  so  rigidly,  as  to  eclipse  human 
virtue,  they  create  a  fatal  discord.  When  men  come 
to  a  verse  about  faith  as  the  Jew  came  to  his  bond, 
determined  to  have  the  pound  of  flesh,  Paul  and 
James  both  may  as  well  abandon  the  idea  of  teach- 
ing truths  to  the  children  of  men.  Faith  indeed  will 
save  a  soul,  but  faith  then  is  not  rigidly  a  belief;  it 
is  more,  it  is  a  friendship,  for  the  word  belief  is  often 
wholly  omitted,  and  for  whole  pages  the  love  for 
Christ  reigns  in  its  stead.  In  St.  John,  tlie  word 
"love"  quite  excludes  the  word  "faith."  Faith,  there- 
fore, being  a  devotion  to  a  leader,  a  mere  belief  is 
nothing.  A  man  is  justified  by  his  active  affections, 
and  not  by  his  acquiescence  in  some  principle.  Thus 
faith,  in  the  biblical  sense,  is  not  a  simple  belief,  but 
a  mystical  union  with  Christ,  such  that  the  works  of 
the  Master  are  the  joy  of  the  disciple.  Works,  that 
is,  results  —  a  new  life  —  are  the  destiny  of  faith,  the 
reason  of  its  wonderful  play  of  light  upon  the  re- 
ligious horizon.  As  man  by  his  sin  lost  the  image 
of  Cod,  so  by  faith,  that  is,  by  devotion  to  Christ, 
he  is  by  cross,  and  by  forgiveness,  and  by  conversion, 
rewards  of  his  love,  carried  back  to  the  lost  holiness. 
Faith  is  not  a  simple  compliment  to  the  Deity,  for 
it  is  not  Cod  who  needs  human  praise  so  much  as  it 


11!^  GOOD    WORKS. 


is  man  who  needs  virtue,  and  hence  faith  must  be 
such  a  oneness  with  Christ  as  shall  cast  the  spirit 
more  and  more  each  day  toward  that  uprightness" 
called  "  w^orks,"  which  man  has  lost,  but  which  only 
God  loves.  Hence  James  truly  says,  a  man  is  not 
justified  by  what  he  may  believe,  but  by  such  a  new- 
ness of  inner  life  as  may  cast  the  soul  into  harmony 
with  righteousness.  Faith,  as  a  belief  and  a  friend- 
ship, is  good,  so  far  as  it  bears  the  soul  to  this  moral 
perfection.  This  perfection  is  the  city  to  which  faith 
is  an  open  way,  and  the  only  highway  and  gate ;  there- 
fore, by  the  iinal  works  or  condition  a  man  is  justified. 
You  all,  in*  senses  more  or  less  strict,  look  upon  the 
Bible  as  being  the  divine  history  and  law  of  religion. 
It  is  the  w^ay  of  salvation.  However  Christian  men 
may  differ  about  the  Bible  when  it  speaks  in  the 
name  of  science,  and  tells  how  the  earth  was  made, 
and  when ;  yet  when  it  comes  to  morals,  there  is  no 
denying  that  its  pages  are  the  record  of  God's  w^ill  as 
to  the  life  and  salvation  of  His  children.  Now,  in 
that  book  throughout,  the  works  of  men  play  so  pro- 
found a  part  that  the  verse  of  St.  James  seems  only 
the  reverberation  of  all  the  voices  between  the  Genesis 
and  the  Apocalypse.  The  great  word  of  the  Old 
Testament  was  "  righteousness."  The  "  fear  of  the 
Lord  "  was  the  beginning  of  wisdom.     "  Fear  God  and 


GOOD  WORKS.  113 


keep  His  commandments,  for  this  is  the  whole  duty  of 
man."  Nowhere  in  all  that  large  volume  of  religious 
law  and  history  is  there  any  salvation  alluded  to  apart 
from  uprightness.  That  isolated  "belief,"  which  in 
some  recent  generations  became  a  substitute  for  hon- 
esty and  all  morals,  plays  no  part  in  the  volume 
where  Enoch  "  walked  with  God,"  and  where  it  was 
the  glory  of  David  to  be  a  man  after  God's  own 
heart,  and  where  the  sublimity  of  Job's  character  lay 
in  the  fame  he  had  won  of  being  an  upright  man 
that  "feared  God  and  eschewed  evil."  In  the  glory 
cloud  of  that  wonderful  book  the  voice  of  God  itself 
spoke  forth  and  said,  "  He  was  perfect  and  upright." 
"  There  was  none  like  him  in  the  earth."  He  was 
"eyes  to  the  blind  and  feet  to  the  lame,  a  father  to 
the  poor."  His  philosophy  was  one  of  works.  "  Evil 
doers  shall  be  cut  off,  but  those  that  wait  upon  the 
Lord  shall  inherit  the  earth.  Yerily  there  is  a  reward 
for  the  righteous."  Thus  all  through  the  Old  Testa- 
ment there  were  voices  of  God  enough  to  justify  the 
words  of  James  and  clothe  them  with  an  equal  inspira- 
tion. In  studying  this  life  of  Job,  one  of  the  Prince- 
ton divines ,,  seems  to  become  enamored  of  "  good 
works "  as  opposed  to  belief  alone,  and  says  Job  "  is 
evidently  portrayed  as  a  model  man."  *  *  *  "]S"o 
account  is  made  of  ancestry,  or  of  connection  with  the 
8 


U^  GOOD   WORKS. 


covenant  people  of  God.  There  is  no  hint  of  his  rela- 
tionship to  Abraham.  He  was  plainly  not  one  of  his 
descendants."  *  *  *  "  Evidently  it  is  not  outward 
associations  or  connections,  though  of  the  most  sacred 
kind,  that  constitute  the  evidence  and  pledge  of  God's 
favor,  but  personal  character  and  life.  In  every  nation, 
and  in  every  communion,  he  that  feareth  God  and 
worketh  righteousness  is  accepted  of  Him."  This 
Princeton  divine  does  not  pause  here.  As  though 
fearing  he  might  still  be  giving  only  a  doubtful  sound, 
he  proceeds  to  say,  "  The  important  question  is  not. 
Are  you  a  Jew  or  a  Gentile?  Are  you  a  member  of 
this  or  that  branch  of  God's  visible  church  ?  Nor  even, 
Are  you  a  member  of  any  outward  body  of  professing 
Christians  whatever?  but,  Have  you  personally  that 
character  which  is  acceptable  to  God,  and  are  3^ou  lead- 
ing a  life  that  is  pleasing  in  his  sight  ?  "  These  words 
are  exceedingly  valuable,  not  only  because  true,  but 
because,  coming  from  a  great  orthodox  origin,  they 
show  that  the  heart  of  the  most  extreme  champions  of 
"faith"  can  no  longer  separate  salvation  from  a  life  of 
honor  as  to  God  and  man.  Religion  is  confessed  to 
be  character.  But  does  not  this  Princeton  teacher  base 
the  salvation  of  Job  upon  his  sole  relation  to  the 
coming  Pedeemer,  apart  from  all  personal  character? 
I    have    shown    that   in    his    judgment    the    important 


GOOD   WORKS.  115 


question  is,  "  Have  you  that  personal  character  which 
is  acceptable  to  God  ? "  Hence  the  "  works "  of  St.- 
James  are  a  part  inseparable  of  the  great  salvation. 
What  the  divine  from  whom  we  quote  does  say 
about  the  "  Redeemer "  of  Job  is  equally  liberal  and 
equally  wonderful.  He  says,  "  God  was  his  Redeemer ; 
Christ,  who  was  in  the  beginning  with  God,  and  was 
God,  is  ours.  When  Job  appeals  to  his  Redeemer,  he 
does  so  without  even  remotely  apprehending  that  He  (the 
Redeemer)  is  the  second  person  of  the  Godhead ;  for, 
of  the  distinction  of  persons  in  the  Divine  Being,  and 
of  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  as  unfolded  in  the  ]S^ew 
Testament,  he  knew  nothing."  The  inference  from 
these  words  is  certainly  this :  That  the  most  devoted 
students  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments  do,  in  our 
day  at  least,  perceive  the  overshadowing  question  to 
be  as  Dr.  Green  says :  '^  Have  you  that  personal  char- 
acter which  is  acceptable  to  God  ? "  It  may  be  impos- 
sible for  all  persons  to  see  the  Redeemer  just  alike  in 
His  relation  to  each  soul,  but  in  the  midst  of  this 
conflict  between  human  works  and  the  works  of  the 
Redeemer,  the  heart  must  cling  to  its  personal  holi- 
ness as  something  about  which  there  can  be  no  doubt. 
In  the  Bible  there  may  be  some  obscurity,  hiding  from 
some  minds  the  nature  of  the  atonement,  or  mediation, 
or  substitution  of  one  for  another,  but  in  all  the  Bible 


110  GOOD   WORKS. 


there  is  no  doubt  left  anywhere  to  hang  over  the  doc- 
•trine  that  "  the  pure  in  heart  only  shall  be  blessed." 
Passing  away  from  the  old  time  and  the  land  of  Job  and 
coming  to  the  absolute  presence  of  Christ,  we  find  Ilim 
not  informing  JN^icodemus  that  he  must  cherish  a  state 
of  belief,  but  that  "  /le  must  he  horn  again^''  Paul  is 
also  eloquent  over  the  "  new  man,"  the  new  spirit 
within.  Hence,  while  the  Redeemer,  both  of  the  old 
patriarch  and  of  the  latest  Christian,  may  often  be 
carrying  forward  His  part  of  the  great  human  sal- 
vation behind  clouds,  heavy  or  light  —  clouds  which 
Job  could  not  penetrate  —  and  which  hence  mankind 
at  large  need  not,  the  human  side  of  salvation,  namely, 
a  new  life  and  new  works,  lies  always  in  a  clear 
light ;  clear  whether  viewed  from  the  Bible  or  from 
the  crying  need  of  society.  Society,  at  large  and  in 
the  minute,  from  empire  to  fireside,  demands  a  reli- 
gion of  good  works.  It  would  permit  the  man  of 
Uz  to  sink  his  Christ  in  the  idea  of  God,  without 
separating  the  unity  into  its  Trinity,  but  it  dare  not 
permit  him  to  turn  aside  from  being  "  eyes  to  the 
blind  and'  feet  to  the  lame."  Society  could  not  demand 
that  he  embody  exactly  so  much  in  his  hymn  to  his 
Redeemer,  but  it  was  compelled  to  beg  him  to  omit 
nothing  from  his  principle,  "  to  fear  God  and  eschew 
evil."     This  was  the  human  side  of  salvation,  and  any 


GOOD   WORKS.  117 


shortcomings  there  ^oiild  deeply  injure  all  the  sacred 
interests  of  State  and  home  and  heart. 

We  are  informed  that  God  so  loved  the  world 
that  He  sent  His  Son,  that  whosoever  believed  in 
Him  should  not  perish,  but  have  eternal  life.  This 
love,  therefore,  will  not  permit  the  world  to  suffer 
in  personal  goodness  by  relying  upon  external  right- 
eousness. There  is  nothing  society  so  much  needs 
to-day  as,  not  divine  righteousness,  but  human  right- 
eousness. For  want  of  this  our  nation  mourns,  our 
cities  mourn,  our  churches  are  disgraced,  our  \ery  homes 
are  often  made  desolate.  Our  land  has  everything 
except  righteousness.  Did  any  continent  of  either  old 
history  or  of  fable,  did  even  the  Atlantis  of  Plato, 
or  did  the  fabled  northland  of  Hesiod,  where  the  peo- 
ple lived  in  sweet,  open  sunshine  for  a  thousand  years, 
ever  reveal  such  glory  of  learning,  or  invention,  or  art, 
or  liberty  as  our  land  proclaims  in  words  that  have 
escaped  fable  and  have  become  clothed  with  reality? 
The  people  of  the  blessed  nation  described  by  Hesiod, 
lived,  indeed,  a  thousand  years  each,  but  not  amid 
thought  and  education,  but  only  in  sunshine;  not  in 
a  liberty  of  mind  and  soul,  but  only  amid  sweet  spon- 
taneous fruits ;  not  near  a  temple  of  the  Most  High, 
but  only  in  a  land  where  the  winds  were  sweet,  and 
never  rose  in  storm.      Compared  with  such  an  empire 


118  OOOD   WORKS. 


of  animal  sense  and  peace,  our  nation  with  only  its 
three-score  years  for  each  citizen,  and  with  its  tombs 
and  sorrows  for  all  at  last,  is  as  the  grandeur  of  God 
compared  *vith  the  smile  of  an  infant  in  its  first  vague 
dream.  Such  a  republic  as  we  dwell  in  this  day  could 
not  have  entered  into  classic  imagination,  for  the  fancy 
cannot  ,-flow  beyond  the  possibilities  of  its  age,  and 
hence  to  antiquity  a  land  of  such  liberty,  of  such  arts, 
of  such  inventions,  of  such  a  one  God,  and  of  such  a 
worship,  was  wholly  beyond  the  best  human  dream. 
But  now,  what  is  it  that  comes  to  mar  this  scene? 
What  is  it  that  makes  the  humble  citizen  and  the 
statesman  look  upon  both  the  present  and  the  future 
with  a  sadness  that  almost  at  times  makes  them  glad 
that  there  is  a  grave  before  them  which  shall  soon  be 
to  them  an  end  of  disappointed  hope?  There  is  one 
outlook  that  casts  a  shadow  upon  this  great  picture  of 
human  development ;  it  is  the  outlook  of  unrighteous- 
ness. Could  this  land  rise  to  a  religion  of  "good 
works,"  the  ancient  dreamers  might  possess  in  peace 
their  elysian  world  of  perpetual  sunshine,  and  fruits, 
and  of  thousand-year  life,  for  this  nation,  crowned  with 
the  additional  charm  of  public  and  private  honor, 
would  surpass  all  the  poetry  of  yesterday.  Each 
morning  paper,  as  the  facts  now  are,  is  a  history  of 
mingled   glory  and    shame,   charity  and   avarice,   kind- 


GOOD  WORKS.  119 


ness  and  cruelty,  prayer  and  vice.  If,  therefore,  God 
so  loved  the  world  as  to  send  His  Son,  He  must  have 
sent  Him,  not  to  develop  man's  credulity  .so  much  as 
man's  uprightness,  not  to  win  from  us  the  ^words  only 
"I  believe,"  but  also  the  words,  "Lord,  I  will  follow 
Thee  whithersoever  Thou  goest."  The  great  need  of 
the  world  being  an  honorable  life,  the  God  who  "  so 
loved  it"  must  find  in  human  virtue  the  chief  arena 
of  His  love  and  power  and  grace. 

In  interpreting  the  Scriptures  all  our  wise  men 
assure  us  that  the  Old  Testament  was  the  shadow  of 
the  New.  This  we  believe.  But  this  fact  commits  us 
to  the  doctrine  that  if  the  Old  Testament  unfolded  a 
human  righteousness,  that  old  honor  must  have  been 
only  a  shadow  of  the  piety  and  integrity  to  spring  up 
in  the  Christian  dispensation.  If  the  New  Testament 
is  to  be  a  place  where  "belief"  is  a  substitute  for  a 
moral  life,  then  the  uprightness  of  Job  was  not  a 
shadow  of  our  better  era ;  but  the  spectacle  is  reversed, 
and  we  are  the  waning  evening  of  a  day  whose  purer 
sunlight  fell  thousands  of  years  ago  in  the  land  of  Uz. 
But  we  believe  in  no  such  retrograde  of  doctrine.  We 
believe  the  righteousness  of  the  Old  Testament  only 
a  shadow  of  the  great  unfolding  of  the  human  heart, 
destined  to  issue  out  of  the  Sermon  of  the  Mount.  If 
the  old  law  said  "  Thou  shalt  not  kill,"  it  sounded  only 


120  GOOD  WORKS. 


the  first  note  in  the  music  of  a  love  which  would  do  to 
others  what  it  would  that  others  should  do  unto  it. 
Indeed  the  Gospel  is  a  perfect  overflow  of  justice,  of 
honor,  of  kindness,  of  active  love.  Its  prayer  is  that 
men  may  be  perfect,  as  the  Father  in  heaven  is  perfect, 
and  the  hymn  that  has  risen  up  out  of  its  divine 
morality  is,  "  ISTearer,  my  God,  to  Thee."  But  this 
spiritual  condition  will  not  become  universal  or  even 
common,  if  the  word  "  belief"  is  so  magnified  that 
the  Church  cannot  see  the  human  "righteousness"  in 
its  supreme  beauty.  Pulpit  and  pew  must  confess  the 
great  breadth  of  religion,  and  not  fSiX  upon  some  one 
word  and  say  "  I  have  found  it,"  "  I  have  found  it," 
when  they  have  only  face  downward  drawn  so  near 
their  own  earth  that  all  the  other  stars  are  eclipsed. 
That  grand  text  which  helped  revolutionize  the  Chris- 
tian world  in  the  sixteenth  century,  "  The  just  shall 
live  by  faith,"  having  by  its  final  word  set  us  free  from 
Romish  error  and  despair,  ought  now  by  its  initial 
word  to  help  set  us  free  from  public  and  private  neglect 
of  a  virtuous  character.  Saved  from  superstition,  we 
at  last  need  a  salvation  from  vice.  Religian  is  so  broad 
it  demands  the  whole  verse.  Such  a  pyramid  as  Chris- 
tianity cannot  be  founded  on  a  simple  word.  Who  is 
it  that  lives  by  faith?  The  just!  Oh,  yes!  The 
wicked,  the  dishonest,  the  cruel  cannot,  it  seems,  live 


GOOD  WORKS.  121 


by  a  simple  belief  I  It  is  the  just  who  thus  live.  It 
would  seem,  therefore,  that  faith  is  some  fountain  out 
of  w^hich  the  human  family  is  to  draw  a  more  perfect 
character  each  day,  and  their  honor,  and  piety,  and 
charity  are  not  to  draw  life  from  man,  but  from  faith  in 
the  living  God.  It  is  works  through  faith  that  save. 
I^ow,  the  lessons  from  the  text  are  these  : 

(1)  iS^ever  believe  any  one  who  comes  to  you  with 
Cliristianity  condensed  into  any  one  word,  be  that  word 
ever  so  dear  and  so  valuable.  Christianity  is  not  in  a 
single  term. 

(2)  Always  distrust  any  one  who  rigidly  follows  the 
letter  of  God's  word,  for  thus  you  will  be  plunged 
into  a  world  of  discord,  and  the  Bible  will  lie  at  your 
feet  a  hai'p,  broken,  utterly  without  music  for  the  sad 
or  happy  hours  of  life. 

(3)  Take  the  Bible  in  its  infinite  scope,  and  look 
upon  it  as  a  universe  which  you  may  love,  but  cannot 
weigh  and  measure.  Wlien  your  will  seems  powerless 
over  life  and  death,  fly  to  the  Divine  Will,  which  has 
no  weakness,  and  which  will  do  all  things  well.  When 
your  best  works  fail,  and*  you  feel  their  worthlessness, 
fly  to  Him  whose  cross  stands  between  you  and  God's 
wrath.  Believe  in  Christ,  and  find  peace.  But  when 
you  perceive  your  days  to  be  without  ^drtue,  and  with- 
out charity,    and  without   religion,   read  the  words   of 


1^2  GOOD  WORKS. 


James  —  that  a  man  is  justified  by  his  works  and  not 
by  faith  only;  and  let  this  sentence  be  as  the  thunder 
of  God's  justice  all  through  thy  sinful  heart.  Oh,  that 
this  many-voiced  religion  might  sound  its  true  music 
all  through  our  country,  and  give  us  men  of  love,  men 
of  faith,  men  of  hope,  and  men  of  virtue ! 


THE    GREAT    DEBATE 


SEEMOJS"    YII. 
THE  GHEAT  DEBATE. 


"  Clouds    and    darkness    are    round    about   him ;    righteousness 
and  judgment  are  the  habitation  of   his  throne."  —  Psalms  97 : 2. 

n~^HE  deatli  recently  of  the  great  anti-Christian 
critic,  David  Frederich  Strauss,  whose  warfare 
against  the  Christian  Church  has  been  the  longest 
and  most  radical  ever  waged  against  our  religion, 
makes  it  becoming  the  day  near  the  death  of  such  a 
veteran  enemy  that  something  should  be  said  upon 
some  theme  suggested  at  least  by  this  great  German 
name.  Let  us  postpone  for  some  future  Sunday  an 
inquiry  into  the  nature  and  results  of  that  rationalism 
to  which  this  scholar  gave  up  almost  wholly  his  long 
life,  and  let  us  be  content  to-day  with  thoughts  of 
that  great  religious  debate  of  which  Strauss  was  only 
a  .mere  fragment  as  to  form  and  power  and  duration. 
His  loud  voice  only  reminds  us  of  the  fact  that  the 
whole  earth  has  always  echoed  with  shouts  for  and 
against  religion,  and  the  dust  cloud  of  war  which,  for 


126  THE  ORE  AT  DEBATE. 

a  half-century,  followed  the  footsteps  of  this  German, 
only  remind  us  of  the  general  dust  cloud  that  has 
followed  somebody's  footsteps  in  religion  all  the  way 
from  Socrates  and  Celsus  to  Spinoza  and  Strauss  and 
Emerson.  If  there  be  some  page  in  history  where 
the  religious  debate  stood  adjourned  for  a  season,  we 
do  not  yet  know  of  that  page,  but  would  much  love 
to  find  it  and  make  of  it  a  special  study,  and  derive 
from  it  an  elevated  form  of  happiness.  Looking  out 
upon  the  turmoil  of  to-day,  in  which  a  few  individ- 
uals are  struggling  with  the  old  and  new  Episcopacy, 
and  old  and  new  Baptists,  and  old  and  new  Presbyte- 
rians, and  are  tossing  to  and  fro  the  words  "  orthodox  " 
and  "heterodox,"  many  Christians  wonder  what  is  to 
become  of  the  Church,  and  the  daily  press  often  exults 
as  though  in  a  few  years  no  public  institution  would 
remain  of  value  to  the  people  except  the  morning 
newspaper.  But  notwithstanding  the  turmoil  of  to- 
day, we  must  yet  conclude  that  the  present  is  peaceful 
compared  with  the  past,  and  that  the  Christian  Church, 
in  essentials  the  same  as  to-day,  will  long  bear  the 
press  daily  company,  and  will  surpass  it  in  filling  the 
public  heart  with  virtue  and  hope. 

That  the  boasted  enlightenment  of  our  century  ought 
to  express  itself  in  a  wider,  more  loving,  more  genteel, 
more   Christ-like   Church    than    we    now   possess,   is  a 


THE  GREAT  DEBATE.  12T 

question  that  will  not  admit  of  debate,  but  dismissing 
the  ideal  from  our  mind,  and  remembering  the  past 
times  when  our  ancestors  burned  Sei-vetus,  and  cursed 
Galileo,  and  hung  witches,  and  banished  Quakers,  we 
seem  to  have  come  upon  halcyon  days,  when  the  once- 
troubled  waters  are  calm  indeed.  It  is  indeed  a  pitiful 
case  when  the  Christianity  of  to-day  must  rest  its  de- 
fense upon  the  more  outrageous  conduct  of  yesterday; 
but  such  a  mode  of  argument  is  made  legitimate  by 
the  fact  that  all  the  confidence  and  hope  we  enjoy  in 
human  afifairs  at  large  is,  for  the  most  part,  founded 
not  upon  the  fact  of  perfection,  but  the  fact  of  pro- 
gress. K  politics  should  to-day  attempt  to  read  its- 
own  worth,  it  would  not  dare  compare  itself  with  the 
ideal  of  a  golden  future,  but  with  the  dark  facts  of 
yesterday,  and  would  say,  "Where,  yesterday,  you  saw 
a  cruel  despotism,  to-day  you  see  a  republic ;  where, 
yesterday,  you  heard  the  slave  chains,  to-day  you  hear 
the  universal  shout  of  liberty."  But  this  liberty  is 
not  ideal.  It  is  very  imperfect ;  but  you  read  its  rela- 
tive value  in  the  groans  and  ignorance  and  inex- 
pressible wrongs  of  the  last  generation.  Thus  the 
present,  in  all  the  non-religious  divisions  of  its  life, 
sees  its  face  in  the  mirror  of  the  past ;  and  hence, 
when  the  Church  would  see  itself,  or  would  argue  in 
its  own  defense,  it  is  authorized  to  appeal  to  its  own 


128  THE  GREAT  DEBATE. 


painful  history,  aud  then  say,  "  I  have  made  some 
progress;  I  have  drawn  a  little  nearer  to  charity,  to 
wisdom,  to  truth,  to  God."  When  it  comes  to  com- 
paring any  existing  moral  agency  with  the  ideal,  it 
will  at  once  be  seen  that  the  Christian  Church  stands 
no  further  away  from  a  perfect  church  than  the  news- 
paper stands  away  from  an  ideal  newspaper,  or  our 
Government  stands  away  from  an  ideal  Republic  or 
State.  The  model  church,  or  the  model  Christian,  is 
no  more  definitely  marked  out  in  the  New  Testament 
than  the  ideal  journal,  or  senator,  or  state  is  portrayed 
in  the  intellect  of  mankind,-  and  hence  over  all  these 
shapes  of  human  being  there  must  be  written  one 
common  apology :  "  We  do  not  claim  perfection ;  we 
claim  only  progress."  Such  is  the  spirit  with  which 
we  must  all  draw  near  to  any  existing  moral  attribute 
or  agency  of  society  with  the  desire  justly  to  measure 
its  worth. 

It  must  also  be  remembered  that  whatever  idea 
becomes  incorporated  into  society,  and  becomes  a  part 
of  its  daily  association  and  life,  jnust  assume  the  image, 
not  of  the  inventor  or  revealer  of  the  idea,  but  of  the 
holder  of  the  idea  at  second  hand.  Hence  marriage,  a 
divine  idea  in  the  outset,  cut  loose  from  its  divine 
moorings  and  becoming  concrete  in  man,  becomes 
henceforth    an    image  of,  not   a   divine,  but  of  human 


THE  GREAT  DEBATE.  129 

life,  and  puts  on  the  quarrels,  the  jealousies,  the 
infirmities  of  mankind;  and  the  ideal  husband  passes 
over  a  long  varying  scale  between  perfection  and  a 
tyrant,  and  the  bride  is  to  be  found  somewhere  in 
the  long  path  between  the  beautiful  Eve  and  the 
unhappy  Xantippe.  The  moment  an  idea,  however 
divine,  passes  into  the  life  of  man,  it  must  return  to 
its  divine  beauty  only  so  fast  as  man  himself,  in  all  his 
faculties,  rises  in  the  scale  of  being.  Such  a  divine 
idea  is  the  Church;  and  hence,  entering  the  bosom 
of  man,  if  man  is  a  disputant  by  nature  and  wages 
incessant  warfare  with  his  tongue,  in  senate,  in  medi- 
cine, in  law,  in  politics,  then  in  theology  also  will 
the  great  debate  continue,  in  a  coarseness  or  a  sweet- 
ness, according  to  the  distance  of  the  age  or  the 
individual  from  the  ideal  in  Jesus  Christ.  The  grand 
duty  which  lies  equally  before  State  and  Church, 
citizen  and  husband.  Christian  and  editor,  is  daily  to 
struggle  away  from  the  natural  man  up  toward  the 
ideal  stature  of  his  peculiar  world,  and  in  this  struggle 
we  have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that  the  Christian 
Church  has  reformed  its  creed  and  life  and  manners 
as  rapidly  as  the  bar  has  reformed  its  laws,  or  medi- 
cine its  theories,  or  home  its  customs,  or  govern- 
ment its  liberty.  In  the  events  of  the  present,  in 
the  turmoil  of  the  Churches,  in  the  calm  discussions 
9 


130  THE  GUEAT  DEBATE. 

and  in  the  outbursts  of  lialf-civilized  passion,  1  see 
only  what  one  may  see  in  the  senate,  or  in  the  editorial 
columns  of  the  daily  papers,  the  onward  march  of  a 
human  family  which  neither  in  Church  nor  in  editorial 
sanctum,  nor  in  politics,  nor  in  the  market-place,  has 
wholly  escaped  yet  from  the  infirmities  of  children, 
or  from  the  Pauline  conception  of  the  wild  natural 
man.  So  long  as  the  human  mind  possesses  egotism 
or  narrowness;  so  long  as  the  heart  loves  self  more 
than  mankind,  so  long  as  meum  is  so  loved  and 
tuum  is  so  despised  or  envied,  so  long  will  these 
infirmities  of  soul  break  forth,  almost  equally,  in  our 
homes,  our  streets,  our  professions,  our  social  life  and 
our  religions ;  so  that  the  final  peace  and  glory  of 
theology  need  not  be  expected  to  come  by  the  answer 
which  debate  will  ever  bring  all  questions,  but  by  the 
culture  which  an  actual  imitation  of  Christ  will  finally 
bring  to  the  heart.  This  turmoil  in  religious  affairs 
which  now  rages,  is,  we  conclude,  only  the  human 
heart  acting  as  savage  rather  than  as  divine,  and 
acting  in  religion  just  as  in  science  or  politics. 

But  let  us  return  to  our  chief  apology  that  the 
Church,  in  the  face  of  all  this  strife,  does  advance  both 
in  the  quality  of  its  doctrines  and  as  to  the  diminished 
quantity  and  better  quality  of  its  warfare.  What  a 
great  progress  in  doctrine  within  almost   the  memory 


THE  GREAT  DEBATE.  131 

of  the  oldest  of  jou.  The  last  half  century  has  by 
itself  alone  transformed  the  idea  of  God  from  that  of 
an  infinite,  pitiless  force  into  almost  the  Father  and 
Savior  of  the  l^ew  Testament.  Reimarus  in  the  first 
of  onr  centuiy  said :  "  For  the  most  part  men  go  to 
perdition,  and  hardly  one  in  a  thousand  is  saved." 
And  a  venerable,  pious  man  of  the  same  period  said  : 
^'  That  as  in  a  hive  of  bees  only  one,  among  the  many 
thousands,  has  the  happiness  to  be  queen,  so  with  men, 
only  one  soul  is  saved  to  thousands  doomed  to  the  flames 
of  hell."  These  words  indicate,  we  may  suppose,  the 
most  common  belief  of  past  times  in  the  Church,  for 
in  harmony  with  such  a  sentiment  the  Augsburg  con- 
fession says :  "  We  condemn  the  Anabaptists  who 
assert  that  unbaptised  children  can  be  saved." 

But  there  is  no  demand  for  such  a  recounting  of 
the  religious  atrocities  of  former  generations.  You  all 
know  enough  of  them  to  justify  the  conclusion  that 
our  century  has  almost  en  masse  marched  away  from 
the  great  gloom,  disgraceful  alike  to  God  and  to  the 
reasoning  powers  of  His  children.  In  the  estimate 
made  of  this  life,  in  thankfulness  to  God  for  it,  in  the 
efibrt  to  develop  it  in  its  varied  paths  of  industry,  art, 
love,  liberty,  this  centurs^  is  a  great  progress  over  the 
days  when  religion  was  only  a  lamentation,  and  when 
the  most  ashes  and  poverty  was  always  the  most  piety. 


13^  THE  GREAT  DEBATE. 

The  wortlilessness  of  this  life  was  so  ^^enerally  confessed, 
and  even  gloried  in,  that  Calvin  himself  was  swept  along 
wath  the  dust-covered  monks,  and  from  similar  gloom 
cried  out :  "  Earth  is  a  place  of  exile.  Only  because 
God  has  placed  us  in  this  world  we  must  perform  our 
functions.  It  is  solely  the  divine  command  which 
imparts  a  true  value  to  our  vocations.  In  themselves 
they  are  devoid  of  such."  That  is,  no  work,  no  social 
life,  no  books,  no  pleasure  is  of  any  value.  We  must 
do  all  things  as  a  slave  obeys  his  master.  That  the 
Church  has  escaped  from  this  suicide  of  mind  and 
heart,  that  it  has  moved  away  from  this  philosophy  so 
unworthy  of  being  called  human,  much  less  an  inspired 
word,  is  fully  attested  by  the  intimate  friendship,  to-day, 
between  Christianity  and  industry  and  science  and  art, 
and  by  the  joy  of  our  children,  who  wreathe  their  church- 
rooms  with  festoons,  and  worship  their  Savior,  not  with 
despair,  but  with  joy  and  gratitude. 

Thus  confessing  the  shortcomings  of  the  present 
Church  universal,  we  may  perceive  that  it  is  advancing 
as  rapidly  as  any  of  its  sister  philosophies,  politics  or 
professional  science ;  and  is  held  back,  not  by  internal 
falsehood  or  intrinsic  w^orthlessness,  but  by  the  same 
defects  of  humanity  which  often  make  the  law  a  doubt- 
ful profession,  and  turn  politics,  one  of  the  noblest 
human   pursuits,  into  an   industry  which   noble   minds 


THE  GREAT  DEBATE.  133 

feel,  in  generations  here  and  there,  called  upon  by  self- 
respect  to  avoid.  But  amid  all  this  ebb  and  flow  of 
human  culture  and  savagery,  the  intrinsic  value  of  the 
Church  remains  unchanged,  just  as  the  worth  of  human 
freedom  is  not  aftected,  although  the  streets  of  Paris 
may,  in  some  hour  of  madness,  in  the  same  moment 
ring  with  the  shout  of  freedom  and  drip  with  innocent 
blood.  All  the  dear  objects  of  earth  must  wait  not  for 
more  truth  only,  but  for  a  development  of  good  manners. 
Let  us  pass  now  to  a  view  of  this  religious  turmoil 
from  another  standpoint.  Does  all  this  warfare  of 
words  come  from  the  simj)le  "incompatibility  of  tem- 
per" existing  in  the  lower  forms  of  the  human  family? 
Oh,  no !  A  vast  quantity  of  it  coming  up  from  the 
wickedness  and  semi-barbarism  of  individual  hearts,  and 
much  coming  from  ignorant,  literal  interpretations  of 
the  Bible,  there  yet  remains  a  great  ocean  out  of  which 
the  clouds  of  mental  conflict  have  rolled  upward  in  the 
past  thousands  of  years,  and,  in  the  present,  outward 
still  marches  this  long,  solemn  cloud.  Be  men  ever 
so  honest,  ever  so  charitable,  ever  so  loving,  coming  to 
their  pulpits,  or  to  their  counting-desks,  and  there  at- 
tempting to  express  Christianity  or  speak  of  it,  conflict- 
ing words  will  fall.  The  reason  of  this  is  found  in  the 
simple  fact  that  it  is  demonstrative  evidence  alone 
which  secures   uniformity  of  belief,  and  hence  any  re- 


1^4  THK  ORE  AT  DEBATE. 

ligion,  any  science,  an}^  theory,  based  not  upon  snch 
demonstrative  evidence,  must  advance  through  the  world 
accompanied  by  the  tumult  of  debate.  Any  proposition 
based  upon  thousands  of  variable  premises  or  facts, 
based  upon  experiment  in  part,  as  medicine,  or  upon 
reason  and  experiment,  as  politics,  will  never  escape 
conflicting  opinions  unless  you  can  conceive  of  a  dis- 
tant day  when  every  possible  experiment  shall  have 
been  tried  and  correctly  reported,  and  that  upon  these 
experiments  the  mind  shall  act,  destitute  of  bias,  and 
clothed  with  adequate  power.  Thus  it  would  seem  that 
the  hope  is  poor,  for  a  day,  when  the  physicians  who 
stand  by  the  bedside  of  the  sick,  and  when  the  men 
who  meet  in  Congress,  shall  be  strangers  to  all  vari- 
ation of  opinion,  and  shall  act  in  silence,  the  great 
storm  of  ten  thousand  years  having  become  a  peace. 
JSTow,  among  those  theories  whose  evidence  is  not  dem- 
onstrative, but  only  cumulative  and  partial,  Christianity, 
and  religion  at  large,  are  at  once  seen  to  be  classed. 
It  has  pleased  God  not  only  to  enwrap  with  clouds  the 
science  which  might  cure  the  sick  loved  ones — not  only 
the  science  which  might  make  a  country  happy  in  its 
laws  and  customs  —  but,  "clouds  and  darkness  are  about 
Him  "  in  that  most  sacred,  most  solemn  silence  which 
speaks  of  the  soul  here  and  hereafter.  Here  the  shadow 
which  has  fallen  across  all  human  paths  toward  the  truth. 


THE  GREAT  DEBATE.  io5 

has  fallen  also;  and  as  the  physician  looks  down  upon 
the  sick  child,  and  knows  not  what  to  do  next,  stands 
baffled  before  the  mystery  of  life  and  death,  so  the 
human  heart,  coming  up  to  the  word  "religion,"  or 
"  soul,"  is  made  of  peculiar  clay  if  it  does  not  bow  in 
a  half  silence,  and  divide  its  moments  equally  between 
arguments  and  tears.  When  our  daily  papers  ridicule 
the  Churches  because  they  send  forth  conflicting  voices, 
this  ridicule  must  be  based  in  part  upon  a  forgetfulness 
of  the  fact  that  these  journals  have  themselves  con- 
tended for  a  generation,  and  have  not  yet  defined  and 
fixed  a  single  great  political  truth  so  that  it  can  now 
be  removed  from  the  arena  of  debate.  Have  they  been 
any  more  successful  in  interpreting  the  constitution 
than  the  clergy  have  in  intei*preting  their  Scriptures? 
Have  they  learned  the  length  and  breadth  of  suflrage 
any  more  exactly  than  the  sects  have  learned  the 
mode  and  extent  of  salvation?  Have  they  in  a  hun- 
dred years  learned  whether  our  Government  has  a 
religious  quality,  and  may  teach  religion  in  State 
schools?  or  whether  it  has  only  the  functions  of  a  tem- 
poral machine,  without  a  God,  or  an  assumption  of  a 
soul?  With  a  full  consciousness  of  the  fact  that  the 
question  of  women's  political  right  was  before  Plato's 
mind  two  thousand  years  ago,  and  is  now  tossed  about 
in  the  public  press  with  no  hope  of  finding  a  demon- 


136  THE  GREAT  DEBATE. 

strative  answer,  and  knowing  that  it  is  only  one  of  an 
army  of  such  indeterminate  inquiries,  we  feel  that  the 
religious  debate  should  be  pardoned  by  those  men  who 
in  the  great  political  sea  have  "  toiled  all  night," —  and 
a  long  night  it  has  been  —  and  have  caught  nothing. 
If  our  able  statesmen,  with  the  written  Constitution 
before  them,  have  thus  far  been  unable  to  determine 
whether  the  document  permits  or  forbids  the  system  of 
national  banks,  why  is  it  such  a  shameful  phenomenon 
when  clergymen  differ  about  the  word  "atonement," 
or  signification  of  the  word  ''everlasting,"  or  the  word 
"  inspiration  "  itself? 

It  is  full  time  that  the  great  religious  debate  should 
receive  at  the  hands  of  men  in  public  places  the 
palliation  and  perfect  pardon  to  be  found  in  the  two 
facts :  (1)  that  man  is  quarrelsome  along  all  paths,  (2) 
that  there  is  no  positive  conclusion,  and  hence  no  end 
to  debate,  in  realms  where  the  evidence  is  not  mathe- 
matical, but  only  approximative.  While  the  outside 
scholars  and  critics  should  confess  these  two  corollaries 
deduced  easily  from  human  life,  those  persons  who 
stand  inside  the  Church  should  doubtless  be  influenced 
by  the  same  facts,  and  examine  well  whether  their 
zeal  for  their  orthodoxy  is  daily  springing  from  their 
advanced  culture  and  from  their  desire  to  be  Christ- 
like, or  whether  it  comes  from  that  half-innocent,  half- 


THE  GREAT  DEBATE.  137 

civilized  egotism  which  hates  all  things  but  self,  and 
often  with  a  strange  pantheism  identifies  the  "Ego" 
with  the  Almighty.  In  his  powerful  address  before 
the  Evangelical  Alliance,  upon  the  question,  ''How 
best  to  meet  the  modern  infidel,"  Theodor  Chiistlieb 
says:  "We  must  ask  him  to  confess  that  the  proofs 
of  religion  are  not  mathematical,  but  only  moral,  and 
hence  will  not  compel  assent  aside  from  the  help  of 
the  moral  feelings."  Yes,  this  is  the  concession  which 
the  skeptical  and  infidel  ought  cheei'fully  to  make,  but 
these  "  clouds  and  this  darkness  round  about  God " 
indicate  a  line  of  conduct  for  the  Chiu'ch  as  for  the 
world;  for  if  the  infidel  must  approach  the  Chm-ch 
sympathizing  with  its  form  of  evidence,  the  Church 
must  approach  him  not  with  a  dogmatism  and  a  rude- 
ness, but  with  a  confession  that  it  walks  by  faith  rather 
than  by  sight,  and  with  a  parallel  confession  of  sorrow 
that  it  has  not  some  proof  that  would  cany  the  infidel 
heart  over  at  once  to  the  blessed  land  of  belief  and 
hope  and  peace.  If  the  infidel  must  be  asked  to  con- 
fess that  there  are  clouds  about  our  path  and  destiny, 
let  us  not  ourselves  set  forth  to  meet  him  as  fi-om  a 
full  blaze  of  infinite  information,  but  from  the  tender- 
ness and  humility  of  the  same  mystery  with  which  we 
would  envelop  his  heart. 

The  text  does  not  leave  the    human  family  wholly 


138  THE  GREAT  DEBATE. 


to  the  mercy  of  ''clouds  and  darkness."  There  is  a 
part  of  the  great  sky  open,  and  thither  turning,  the 
eye  may  always  see  clear  blue  enough  and  bright 
stars  enough  to  reveal  the  path  through  time's  ocean 
and  delight  the  heart.  "  Righteousness  and  judgment 
are  the  habitation  of  His  throne."  We  know  not  what 
nor  where  is  our  God,  our  heaven.  Around  hundreds 
of  divine  ideas  clouds,  more  or  less  light  or  heavy,  roll, 
but  the  throne  of  God  w^ill  always  be  found  in  right- 
eousness and  justice  if  haply  any  heart  shall  seek  for  it 
there.  The  soul  reposing  in  perfect  righteousness  is 
close  by  the  throne  of  his  Maker  and  Kedeemer ;  and 
that  one  evident  fact  should  speak  peace  to  the  soul, 
and  make  it  .say  of  life's  mysteries,  "  All  the  days  of 
my  appointed  time  will  I  wait  till  my  change  come." 
Looking  from  these  days  of  discordant  thought  into 
the  future,  we  may  be  wholly  unable  to  discern  a  golden 
age  in  which  there  will  be  no  difference  of  opinion 
within  the  boundaries  of  religious  thought ;  and  it  is 
questionable  whether  such  an  age  would  be  golden,  but 
if  there  ever  shall  come  a  time  when  the  world  shall 
confess  the  throne  of  God  to  be  in  "  righteousness," 
there,  in  a  human  heart  educated  out  of  its  selfishness 
and  bitterness ;  there,  in  a  society  where  righteousness 
shall  have  become  a  positive  refinement  of  soul,  (the 
only  perfect  escape  from  man's  primitive  barbarism,)  the 


THE  GUEAT  DEBATE.  139 

variations  of  religious  opinion  will  indeed  continue, 
but  the  debate  will  no  longer  be  a  storm  full  of  light- 
nings and  wrath,  but  a  bright  morning  sky,  full  of 
variety  of  scene  and  sound,  but  equally  full  of  peace. 
Toward  this  noble  destiny  of  man.  which  each  genera- 
tion reveals  as  being  nearer,  I  expect  not  so  much  aid 
to  come  from  the  noise  of  orthodox  intellects  as  from 
the  almost  divine  power  of  orthodox  hearts.  There  of 
course  is  such  a  thing  as  Christian  doctrine,  but  the 
world  will  draw  the  most  of  its  final  triumph  irom 
Christian  good  manners,  and  blessed  will  be  the  age 
when  he  will  be  the  heterodox  man  who  has  in  his 
heart  any  selfishness,  or  uncharity,  or  primeval  violence. 
The  final  peace  of  society  is  to  come  not  by  the  path 
of  Christian  theolog}',  but  by  the  more  floweiy  path  of 
Christian  love  and  Christian  good  manners.  It  must 
become  a  public  doctrine,  and  a  deep  feeling  that  he  is 
the  true  betrayer  of  the  world's  Christ  who  wanders 
from  Him  in  the  deeds  and  in  the  color  of  his  daily  life. 
When  the  Christian  world  shall  thus  intei'pret  Jesus^ 
as  a  form  of  being,  the  rudeness  of  the  great  debate  will 
have  passed  away.  Infidels  that  could  not  be  driven 
shall  be  more  gently  won,  and  the  clouds  and  darkness 
of  the  moral  argument  will  weigh  little  against  mortals 
who  are  following  that  path  of  righteousness  upon 
which  alone  a  perpetual  sunlight  falls. 


CHARLES   SUMNER. 


SERMOX  YIII. 
CHARLES  SUMXER 


"  The  powers  tliat  be  are  ordained  of  God." 

T  I  ^ITE  world  has  always  loved  to  speak  of  the  Inii- 
-^  mte  One  as  being  the  '"  God  of  Nations,"  because 
there  is  a  greatness  involved  in  the  idea  of  Xation 
which  makes  it  seem  worthy  of  the  attention  and  love 
of  the  Infinite.  It  is  easy  for  the  individual  heart, 
possessed  of  ordinary  humility,  to  feel  quite  overlooked 
in  the  daily  administrations  of  Providence,  but  a  nation 
is  something  so  vast  in  its  interests  and  in  its  life 
which  lies  over  centmies,  that  into  its  great  events 
men  can  generally  see  descending,  in  love  or  wrath, 
the  sublime  form  of  God.  Xotwithstandine  the  most 
elaborate  and  conclusive  argument  that  our  Heavenly 
Father  is  in  all  places  and  times  alike,  yet  we  all  go 
away  from  the  argument  to  confess  Him  sooner  at 
Waterloo  than  where  a  child  is  playing  or  a  bird 
singing;  more  visible  where  slaves  are  shouting  in  a 
new  liberty  than  where  the  farmer  turns  his  farrow  or 


^■^^  CHARLES  SUMNER. 


the  lonelj  woodman  swings  his  axe.  Thus  marking 
tlie  habits  of  the  human  mind,  we  may  perceive  at 
least  how  great  a  thing  is  a  nation.  What  a  vast  idea 
it  is,  that  it  always  claims  the  care  of  the  Almighty, 
and  almost  compels  the  atheist  to  confess  that  there 
is  at  least  a  nation's  God. 

A  nation  is  a  second  world  into  which  we  are  all 
born.  The  first  world  is  only  the  good  green  earth, 
with  its  seasons,  and  food,  and  labor,  and  natural 
vicissitudes;  but  this  is  a  poor  birth-place  for  a  mind 
or  a  soul;  for  into  these  poor,  brutish  arms  falls  the 
Indian  child  or  the  young  Arab.  To  be  born  into 
earth  alone  is  a  fate  that  robs  a  birthday  of  all  woilh. 
It  is  only  an  animal  that  is  born  to  earth  alone.  It 
is  only  when  some  second  world  called  a  "nation" 
becomes  the  soul's  cradle  that  it  becomes  desirable  to 
fall  heir  to  life.  A  nation  is  a  grand  equipment  for 
a  career;  it  is  food,  and  clothes,  and  friends  first,  and 
education,  and  employment,  and  culture,  and  religion 
afterward.  It  is  the  atmosphere  into  which  the  many- 
winged  spirit  comes;  and  a  bird  might  as  well  spread 
its  wings  in  a  vacuum  as  for  a  human  soul  to  be 
bora  away  from  the  treasured-up  virtues  of  a  national 
life.  When  tlie  rude  black  face^  with  retreating  fore- 
head and  great  thick  lips,  meets  you  on  the  Southern 
coast,  you  know  that   being   was   born,  but   you    asso- 


CHARLES  SUMNER.  145 

ciate  with  this  knowledge  the  other  fact  that  he  was 
born  to  savage  Africa.  Great  beyond  all  estimate, 
therefore,  is  the  fact  of  nation^  for  it  shapes  the  soul, 
and  is  the  joy  or  sorrow  of  every  being  that  comes 
into  this  existence.  As  when,  in  the  setting  sun,  after 
a  summer  shower,  all  things,  clouds,  hills,  trees,  and 
even  the  very  grass  and  the  faces  of  our  friends 
standing  in  the  refracted  light  are  covered  with  the 
tinge  of  gold,  so  when  man  is  born  into  a  nation  he 
is  instantly  bathed  in  its  light,  and  sets  forth  in  a 
double  destiny,  that  of  man  and  that  of  citizen ;  and 
it  is,  for  the  most  part,  the  latter  destiny  that  deter- 
mines the  value  of  life.  When  Bunyan  saw  a  culprit 
ascending  the  steps  to  the  gallows,  he  said :  "  That 
were  I  but  for  the  Grace  of  God ; "  but  this  Grace 
does  not  busy  itself  only  with  individuals  here  and 
there,  but  it  marks  out  a  vast  realm  and  makes  it  a 
great,  free,  civilized  state,  and  then  the  millions  that 
come  into  life  in  its  blessed  confines  can,  in  their 
later  years,  when  they  realize  the  value  of  the  great 
fatherland,  say,  "I  was  a  savage,  a  Congo  negro,  but 
for  the  Grace  of  God."  ^ext  to  the  grandeur  of  a 
planet  that  carries  a  thousand  millions  of  people  upon 
its  bosom,  and  whirls  them  along  through  day  and 
night,  and  summer  and  winter,  and  youth  and  old 
age,  comes  the  grandeur  of  a  well-equipped  State 
10 


1^^  CHARLES  SUMNER. 

which,  for  hundreds  of  years,  guards  the  liberty,  and 
industry,  and  education,  and  happiness  of  its  depend- 
ent millions,  crowding  its  influence  in  upon  them 
gently  as  the  atmosphere  lies  upon  the  cheek  in 
June.  Her  language,  her  peculiar  genius,  her  ideals, 
her  religion,  her  freedom,  enwrap  us  better  than  our 
mother's  arms,  for  the  State  enwraps  her  too,  and 
wreaths  her  forehead  with  a  merit  that  warrants  her 
office  and  her  affection.      The  State  is  defined  to  be  a 

*        *        Sovereign  law,  that  with  collected  will, 

Sits  Empress,  crowning  good,  repressing  ill. 

Smit  by  her  sacred  frown 

The  fiend  dissension  like  a  vapor  sinks 

And  e'en  the  all  dazzling  crown 

Hides  his  faint  rays  and  at  her  bidding  shrinks. 

Whence  comes  this  grand  instrument  which,  as  now 
existing  in  our  continent,  under  the  flag  of  liberty, 
pours  around  forty  millions  of  people  such  a  golden 
air  as  no  millions  ever  breathed  before?  Who  gath- 
ered these  flowers  that  wreathe  equally  our  cradle,  our 
altar,  our  homes,  and  our  whole  earthly  pilgrimage? 
This  much  of  a  reply  is  given  by  human  experience: 
Nothing  comes  to  man,  of  excellence,  without  labor. 
All  that  man  possesses  of  art,  or  science,  or  literature, 
or  invention,  has  come  by  regular  payments  made  in 
hard  toil.     As  the  verdure  that  waves  over  the  whole 


CHARLES  SUMNER.  I'JrT 

earth  has  come  from  the  daily  sacrifice  of  the  sun's  heat, 
so  the  glory  manifold  of  each  great  nation  has  come  by 
the  path  of  human  sacrifice  of  thought,  and  toil,  and 
even  life;  and  so  valuable  have  been  the  national  ideas, 
that,  for  all  the  good  the  world  possesses,  there  have 
been  fields  baptized  with  the  heart's  best  blood.  Young 
though  many  of  the  modern  free  nations  may  be  in 
their  present  name  and  form,  yet,  back  of  each  one  lie 
a  thousand  years  of  active  labor,  and  often  of  deep 
agony.  As  geologists  now  tell  us  that  before  God  fitted 
.up  this  earth  for  man,  while  the  mists  were  rising  from 
its  heated  seas,  and  condensing  in  the  cooler  upper  air, 
there  were  often  awful  storms  where  the  thunder  rolled 
incessantly  for  a  hundred  years;  so  each  nation  which 
we  see  standing  forth  now  in  peace  and  beauty  —  Eng- 
land, Germany,  America  —  has  emerged  from  a  thousand- 
year  storm,  where  the  wrath  of  man  has  rolled  in  thun- 
der for  centuries,  and  the  cruel  skies  have  rained  blood. 
One  of  the  poets  says: 

"  A  thousand  years  scarce  serve  to  form  a  state.' 

And  oh !  what  years  of  toil  and  vicissitude  they  are 
to  the  brains  which  stand  at  the  throne,  and  to  the 
hearts  that  stand  in  the  battle,  and  to  the  widow  and 
oiphan  which  weep  when  the  smoke  rolls  away  and 
reveals  the  dead. 


148  CHARLES  SUMNER. 

If  then  a  great  nation  like  our  own  has  come  over 
a  two-thousand-year  path  under  a  sky  of  alternate  peace 
and  storm,  come  along  from  free  Athens,  and  free  Eome 
and  sacred  Palestine,  there  must  have  been  all  along 
guardian  angels  of  its  long  journey,  glorious  leaders  of 
its  wilderness  march;  souls  that  smote  rocks  for  its 
thirsty  multitudes,  aud  prayed  down  manna  in  the  still 
night.  The  morals  of  our  day  can  look  back  and  see 
their  Seneca,  their  Confucius,  but  chiefly  their  Divine 
Jesus;  the  art  of  our  era  looks  back  and  beholds  its 
Phidias,  its  Apelles,  its  Angelo,  linking  the  future 
and  the  past;  poetry  and  all  literature  look  back  and 
cast  smiles  of  gratitude  to  Homer  and  Thucydides  and 
Dante ;  the  law  confesses  the  deep  devotion  of  Cicero 
and  Justinian  as  minds  who  studied  justice  when  the 
world  seemed  young;  and  now,  beholding  this  differ- 
entiation of  men  by  a  wise  providence  of  God,  so 
that  each  part  of  the  soul's  vast  vineyard  may  have 
some  one  to  love  its  vines,  we  reach  the  easy  conclu- 
sion that  the  same  wisdom  will  permit  us  always  to 
hold  in  memory  and  in  love  men  who,  turning  aside 
from  other  pursuits,  have  found  in  the  study  and  love 
and  service  of  their  nation  their  own  special  path 
between  the  cradle  and  the  grave.  It  is  a  blessed 
thought    that    there   have    risen    up    here    and    there 


CHARLES  SUMNER.  149 

hearts  not  only  that  could  weave  the  sweet  songs  of 
a  Yirgil,  and  not  only  hands  that  could  paint  the  pic- 
tures of  a  Parrhasius,  or  that  could  strike  the  notes  of 
a  Mozart ;  not  only  minds  that  may  throw  up  a  dome 
of  St.  Peter's,  or  that  may  astonish  the  world  with 
their  invention,  but  also  other  hearts  which  have  loved 
the  idea  of  nation,  and  have  lived  and  died  not  in 
the  arms  of  a  friend,  but  rather  in  the  arms  of  the 
country.  Out  of  the  thoughts  and  love  and  speciali- 
zation of  these  great  ones  we,  humbler  children  of 
the  State,  have  all  drawn  our  happiness  and  freedom, 
as  the  violets  are  invited  into  life  by  the  all-loving  sun. 
In  the  week  past  the  grave  has  opened  suddenly 
and  taken  back  one  of  these  souls  which  seem  sent  of 
God  to  know  nothing  else  but  their  country,  as  Paul 
knew  nothing  else  but  the  Cross.  Into  that  tomb  which 
grows  wider  each  year  and  has  received  away  from  our 
sio^ht  Washino^ton  and  the  Adamses  and  Jefferson  and 
Clay  and  Webster  and  Lincoln,  at  last  has  been  gathered 
one  more  name  wreathed  as  heavily  as  any  with  the 
glorious  ideas  and  honors  of  our  great  Pepnblic. 
Kapoleon  loved  not  a  nation,  but  his  own  power. 
He  was  not  a  student  of  justice,  but  of  crowns:  he 
studied  how  to  destroy  other  diadems,  and  of  their 
jewels  weave  one  for  himself. 


150  CHARLES  SUMNER. 


The  triumph  and  the  vanity 
The  rapture  of  the  strife, 
The  earthquake  voice  of  victory, 
To  thee  the  breath  of  life  ; 
The  sword,  the  scepter,  and  that  sway, 
Which  man  seemed  made  but  to  obey, 

Wherewith  renown  was  rife, 
All  quell'd !     Dark  Spirit,  what  must  be 
The  madness  of  thy  memory ! 

But  the  memory  of  that  life  just  ended  has  no 
madness  in  it,  but  is  all  a  remembrance  of  honor,  and 
charity,  and  peace. 

It  seems  especially  fitting  the  day  and  place  that 
we  should  devote  this  hour  to  thoughts  over  this  fresh 
tomb,  for  the  greatness  of  Mr.  Sumner's  career  is 
Btrangely  interwoven  with  some  of  the  noblest  ideas 
of  Christianity ;  and  this  union  was  not  accidental,  nor 
prudential,  but  spiritual  and  intellectual,  for  Mr.  Sumner 
in  his  life,  devoted  to  humanity,  so  framed  all  his 
arguments,  and  so  based  them  upon  the  philosophy  of 
Christ  that  the  perpetual  return  of  the  terms  Chris- 
tianity and  Savior  betrays  the  fact  that  much  of  his 
eloquence  was  only  the  Sermon  upon  the  Mount  applied, 
not  to  the  future  of  the  soul,  but  to  the  true,  earthly 
progress  of  mankind.  If  any  group  of  philosophers 
were  to  sit  down  with  the  Life  of  Christ  in  their  hands, 
with  the  desire  to  elaborate  a  political  constitution  from 


CHARLES  SUMNER.  151 

its  pages,  among  the  many  principles  they  would  bring 
forth  we  should  at  once  certainly  find  these  —  peace, 
justice,  and  equality.  From  justice  would  instantly 
come  liberty.  IS^ow  of  that  eventful  life  whose  un- 
timely ending  drapes  this  day  with  sorrow,  these  three 
Christian  ideas,  peace,  liberty,  and  equality,  were  the 
opening  and  final  strain,  the  matin  and  the  vesper.  The 
public  career  of  Mr.  Sumner  began  by  that  unrivaled 
oration  spoken  thirty  years  ago  upon  peace  as  the  som'ce 
of  national  grandeur ;  and  without  any  deviation,  any 
faltering  along  this  path,  he  is  found  at  last  on  the 
border  of  death,  asking  Congress  not  to  paint  upon  its 
flags  of  the  present  and  future  the  names  of  battles 
where  brothers  fought.  His  life  was  all  set  to  one  music, 
and  it  was  a  heavenly  strain  without  discord. 

But  before  I  ask  you  to  think  of  those  three  great 
ideas,  in  which  Mr.  Sumner  did  great  service  for  the 
Christianity  out  of  which  he  took  the  ideas,  and  the 
Christlike  spirit,  too,  permit  me  to  apologize,  so  far  as 
it  may  be  necessary,  for  the  marble  coldness  which 
has  long  been  associated  with  this  eminent  character. 
Let  us  empty  our  minds  of  this  prejudice.  A  public 
man,  writing  a  private  letter  since  the  death  of  this 
senator,  says:  "He  was  cold  as  a  statue.  He  was  a 
child  of  principles  and  books,  and  consequently  had 
little  in  common  with  the  humanities  of  life.     •?<-     -^^     * 


152  CHARLES  SUMNER. 

I  cannot  speak  of  him  generally  in  this  regard ;  but  in 
the  few  times  in  which  I  dined  with  him  at  Mr.  Lin- 
coln's table,  he  was  a  pleasant  dinner  companion,  and 
conversed  happily  and  instructively ;  but  such  times 
were  only  little  outbreaks  of  sunlight.  In  the  main, 
he  was  behind  the  cloud,  and,  while  full  of  gentle  hu- 
manity, he  moved  among  individuals  evolving  an  au- 
stere sense  of  superiority."  Against  the  truth  of  these 
statements  from  one  who  had  the  opportunity  and  the 
discrimination  for  reading  well  the  qualities  of  this 
distinguished  man,  we  would  say  nothing;  indeed,  the 
portraiture  just  given  may  be  confessed  to  be  sufficiently 
correct.  But  that  he  was  capable  of  deep  friendship  is 
fully  seen  in  his  attachment  to  the  loved  President, 
whose  house  was  so  dear  to  him  that  he  repaired  there 
daily  as  to  a  sacred  home  where  he  loved  all  and  was 
also  deeply  loved.  Passing  by  this  inquiry,  I  only  wish 
to  remind  you  that  all  the  great  intellectual  develop- 
ment which  the  world  has  ever  seen  has  been  reached 
at  the  cost  of  the  heart.  ''Where  the  treasure  is," 
says  the  Bible,  "  there  the  heart  will  be  also " ;  and 
hence,  when  an  old  scholar  of  the  dark  ages  found  his 
love  of  thought  increasing,  he  began  to  withdraw  from 
the  streets,  and  to  find,  in  some  monastic  cell,  all  of 
the  world  that  any  longer  remained  in  his  heart;  and 
although  the  dark  ages  are  gone,  and  the  mona.steries 


CHABLE8  SUMNER.  153 

ate  dust,  jet  the  principle  remains  that,  when  the  intel- 
lect weds  itself  fully  to  certain  paths  of  study  and  toil, 
the  heart  soon  sunders  the  other  many  sweet  and  beauti- 
ful associations  of  the  wide  world,  and  casts  its  love 
upon  that  realm  only  to  which  the  intellect  may  have 
wedded  itself  for  better  or  for  worse,  for  richer  or 
poorer.  It  is  an  unconscious  sacrifice  which  genius  is 
always  compelled  to  make;  but  it  is  no  more  visible 
over  the  grave  of  Sumner  than  over  the  grave  of  Mill 
in  philosophy,  or  Pascal  in  metaphysics,  or  Angelo  in 
art,  or  Cicero  in  law  and  letters.  It  is  written  in  all 
history  that  a  life  of  thought  is  a  constant  warfare  against 
a  life  of  sociability  and  cheerfulness  and  love.  Instead 
of  recalling  the  marble  coldness  of  past  illustrious  men 
as  a  blemish  or  a  fault  in  their  character,  we  only  indi- 
cate a  common  fact,  and  we  would  bury  the  defect  for- 
ever under  offerings  of  gratitude,  that  there  have  come 
here  and  there  souls  which,  for  the  development  of 
great,  useful  ideas,  have  been  able  to  abandon  what  we 
mortals  in  a  humbler  vale  call  the  varied  pleasures  of 
life.  But  they  have  not  so  much  lost  happiness  as 
exchanged  that  of  sense  for  that  of  spirit.  Turning 
aside  now  from  this  apology,  let  us  rejoice  that  if  it 
was  the  fate  of  the  lamented  senator  to  live  for  only  a 
part  of  earth  and  for  only  a  part  of  religion,  that  it 
pleased  him  to  live  for  so  magnificent  a  part   of  both 


154  CHARLES  SUMNER. 

politics   and   religion  as  is  found   in   the  words  peace, 
justice,  and  liberty. 

It  was  not  Mr.  Sumner,  you  remember,  who  ad- 
vised the  partnership  of  bibles  and  rifles  in  the  early 
days  of  Kansas.  No,  in  all  this  forty  years  of  public 
life,  Mr.  Sumner  stood  by  the  power  of  argument, 
of  light,  of  Christian  civilization  alone.  His  hymn 
was  the  poet's  psalm  of  peace : 

Were  half  the  power  that  fills  the  world  with  terror, 
Were  half  the  wealth  bestowed  on  camps  and  courts, 

Given  to  redeem  the  human  mind  from  error. 
There  were  no  need  of  arsenals  or  forts. 

The  warrior's  name  would  be  a  name  abhorred, 

And  every  nation  that  should  lift  again 
Its  hand  against  a  brother,  on  its  forehead 

Would  wear,  forever  more,  the  curse  of  Cain. 

In  the  pulpits  of  the  whole  land  the  gospel  doc- 
trines had,  for  the  most  part,  been  applied  to  only 
individual  welfare,  and  chiefly  to  that  welfare  beyond 
the  confines  of  states  —  beyond  the  grave.  Afraid,  for 
the  most  part,  to  preach  what  they  called  politics;  and 
having,  to  an  alarming  extent,  such  a  bad  politics  that 
it  was  perhaps  fortunate  that,  they  remained  silent 
even  by  a  theological  mistake,  the  Christian  ministry 
had,  in  the  last  generations,  left  the  gospel  of  nations 
to  be-  preached  by  the  few  disciples  of  William  Penn 


CHARLES  SUMNER.  155 

and  by  such  virtual  Quakers  as  Channing  and  Whit- 
tier,  and  Sumner,  the  greatest  of  alL  Upon  him  there 
was  no  restraint,  ^o  false  creed,  no  temporary  policy 
such  as  influenced  Webster  and  Clay,  no  fear  of  vio- 
lence, no  fear  of  public  scorn,  either  from  Boston  or 
^ew  Orleans,  ever  held  him  in  any  conceivable  chain, 
but  from  him,  the  freest  man  our  country  ever  had 
in  its  dark  days,  came  the  gospel  of  nations  in  all  its 
Bethlehem  beauty  of  truth  and  spirit.  In  the  present, 
and  more  3^et,  in  the  near  and  far  future,  the  pulpit 
will  confess  that  Charles  Sumner  was  a  minister  at 
its  altar  in  dark  days  when  it  was  afraid,  and  in 
doctrines  to  the  grandeur  of  which  it  had  not  the 
intellect,  nor  the  courage,  nor  the  humanity  to  ascend. 
Penn  and  Channing  and  Sumner  came  in  with  that 
part  of  Christianity  which  belongs  to  the  constitution 
of  nations;  and  when  we  remember  that  a  grand, 
free,  enlightened  State  is  the  land  in  which  the  Cross 
can  ever  be  reared  with  most  success,  the  orators  who, 
upon  the  field  of  statesmanship,  apply  to  society  the 
three  Christian  doctrines  of  peace,  liberty  and  justice, 
must  be  confessed  to  be  standing  very  near  the  holiest 
ministers  of  religion.  As  the  church  helped  Mr.  Sum- 
ner, gave  him  hearts  willing  to  listen  to  his  long 
argument,   so  he  helped   the   church    by   sending   back 


156  CHARLES  SUMNER. 

to   it   men  who  evermore  tried   to   combine   the   char- 
acter of  Christian  with  the  character  of  citizen. 

But  Mr.  Sumner's  attachment  to  peace  was  no  more 
absorbing  and  unbending  than  his  devotion  to  liberty. 
But  liberty  is  twin  sister  of  peace,  as  bondage  is  the 
companion  of  violence.  As  Franklin  gloried  in  saying 
"  Where  liberty  is  there  is  my  country,"  Sumner 
equally  gloried  in  saying  "Where  liberty  is  there  is 
my  party."  Down  this  channel  of  freedom,  for  white 
slaves  in  Barbary,  and  for  black  slaves  in  America,  he 
poured  a  torrent  of  eloquence  for  twenty-five  years,  a 
stream  of  argument,  which  gathering  up  the  wisdom 
of  Greece  and  Rome,  the  experience  of  England,  the 
battle-shouts  of  Marathon  and  Bunker  Hill,  the  blest 
vision  of  all  the  poets,  the  longings  of  Washington 
and  Jefferson,  and  then  bedecking  the  stream  with 
flowers  of  a  gorgeous  rhetoric  growing  upon  either 
bank,  moved  along  like  an  Amazon  toward  the  sea. 
It  has  been  said  recently  by  a  public  man,  that  Mr. 
Sumner  "  surpassed  all  statesmen  in  the  love  and  study 
of  the  right."  It  was  this  deep  prepossession  that  led 
him  to  espouse  the  cause  of  the  slave.  Words  which 
he  himself  applied  to  Channing  thirty  years  ago  return 
now  to  settle  upon  his  own  forehead.  "Follow  my 
white  plume,"  said  the  chivalrous  monarch  of  France. 
Follow    the   right,   more    resplendent    than    plume    or 


CHARLES  SUMNER.  157 

oriflamme,  was  the  watchword  of  Sumner.  But  all 
this  long  history  you  know  well,  for  in  this  hour  when 
death  has  come  to  quicken  our  memory  and  love,  an 
hour  which  makes  an  enemy  a  friend,  all  that  past 
struggle  for  the  slave's  freedom,  and  the  discord  of  the 
Missouri  compromise  down  to  the  death  of  Mr.  Lincoln, 
a  tragedy  which  closed  the  long,  awful  drama,  flashes 
through  your  hearts  with  no  detail  of  sadness  left  out. 
Recall  the  great  pageant  and  see  this  white  face  above 
the  common  mortals. 

But  to-day,  we  can  only  turn  aside  from  the  usual 
themes  of  the  sacred  desk  to  bless  the  Heavenly  Father 
for  this  child  that  came  in  the  name  of  that  form  of 
civilization  which  finds  its  best  exponent  in  the  Savior 
of  mankind,  and  bless  him  that  there  was  one  tongue 
which,  for  a  generation,  made  the  best  eloquence  of  this 
free  land  beam  with  the  light  of  Him  whose  gospel  is 
not  only  a  perfect  salvation,  but  a  perfect  civilization, 
—  the  vital  air,  not  only  of  a  saint,  but  of  a  citizen. 
But  we  cannot  close  these  thoughts  without  asking  you 
to  read  in  this  urn  of  perishable  dust,  but  of  imper- 
ishable memory,  a  lesson  of  hope  which  may  serve  us 
all  in  coming  days,  perhaps  of  the  country,  but  surely 
of  our  own  heart.  When  government,  and  pulpit,  and 
press  were  voiceless  and  hopeless  as  to  a  time  when  the 
nation's  flag  should  be  freed  from  its  last  reproach,  this 


158  CHARLES  SUMNER. 

mental  sight  which  is  closed  now  saw  plainly  in  the 
future  a  day  when  all  the  States  would  be  free,  and 
when  the  national  banner  would  proclaim  liberty  and 
justice  wherever  it  should  wave.  His  w^as  a  hopeful- 
ness which  nothing  but  death  could  abate;  and  blest 
w^th  such  a  prophetic,  almost  inspired  sense,  he,  in  all 
the  years  of  our  civil  w^ar,  was  calm,  and  was  to  Mr. 
Lincoln,  upon  whose  mind  and  heart  a  burden  rested 
which  would  have  wearied  an  Atlas  accustomed  to  up- 
hold the  globe,  a  daily  messenger  of  faith  and  hope  in 
both  man  and  God.  Perhaps  the  marble-like  nature 
of  the  statesman  was  a  peace  and  strength  to  a  presi- 
dent whose  heart  was  always  full  of  tenderness  and 
melancholy  strangely  mingled.  That  immense  power 
of  hope  which  has  always  attended  men  of  ideals,  the 
angel  of  their  need,  accompanied  Mr.  Sumner  in  all 
hours,  and  held  him  up  far  above  the  discord  of  the 
passing  time.  A  poem  which  he  greatly  loved  shows 
us  what  kind  of  a  hymn  sounded  in  the  sky  over  his 
daily  toil.     It  inspired  him  in  the  night  watches: 

"  There's  a  fount  about  to  stream, 
There's  a  light  about  to  beam. 
There's  a  warmth  about  to  glow, 
There's  a  flower  about  to  blow. 
There's  a  midnight  blackness  changing 

Into  gray ; 
Men  of  thought  and  men  of  action 

Clear  the  way  !  " 


CHARLES  SUMNER.  159 

Oh !  why  may  not  the  pulpit  and  each  Christian 
rise  to  this  calm  atmosphere  of  a  trust  in  God,  and 
as  this  statesman  always  saw  liberty  and  justice  about 
to  come  down  out  of  God's  sky,  why  may  not  the 
soldier  of  the  cross  daily  say  to  his  soul 

"  There  is  a  fount  about  to  stream, 
There  is  a  light  about  to  beam," 

and  live  in  this  magnificent  hope  ? 

But  our  time  has  passed.  Much  of  our  country's 
mental  and  moral  glory  has  gone  down  in  past  years. 
We  seem  to  have  only  an  evening  horizon  into  which 
golden  suns  sink,  but  from  which  none  arise.  The 
melancholy  gate  of  death  by  which  these  souls  depart 
seems  wider  than  the  gates  of  life  by  which  such  glo- 
rious beings  are  marching  toward  our  bereaved  hearts. 
But  this  apparent  triumph  of  the  grave  may  come 
from  the  fact  that  we  can  see  the  past  in  all  its  deso- 
lation, but  cannot  unveil  the  future  and  see  its  com- 
pensating good.  We  can  only  hope  that  the  gates  of 
God's  mercy  are  as  wide  as  the  gates  of  His  death, 
and  that  the  solemn  West  into  which  these  lights  are 
sinking  from  our  sky,  may,  by  its  shadows,  remind  us 
that  there  is  an  Eastern  heavens  radiant  with  divine 
love,  upon  whose  bosom  other  orbs  will  appear  re- 
snlendent  with  peace,  justice,  and  liberty. 


THE    LOST    PARADISE 


SERMON  IX. 
THE  LOST  PARADISE. 


"  So  He  drove  out  the  man,  and  He  placed  at  the  east  of  the 
garden  of  Eden  cherubim,  and  a  flaming  sword  which  turned 
every  way,  to  keep  the  way  of  the  tree  of  life." — Genesis  3:24.. 

rr^HE  Biblical  history  of  man's  first  days  upon  earth 
-^  is  a  most  wonderful  symbol  of  all  the  subsequent 
history  of  mankind.  That  honor  and  that  dishonor, 
that  happiness  and  that  sorrow,  seem  a  microscopic 
photograpli  of  the  coming  world,  whose  nine  hundred 
millions  of  people  in  two  hemispheres  were  to  find  and 
lose  honor ;  and  find  and  lose  happiness  daily  for  thou- 
sands of  years.  As  there  is  an  art  which  can  copy  the 
great  London  newspaper  upon  a  space  not  larger  than 
a  child's  finger-nail,  as  all  the  long  columns  of  markets 
and  of  daily  events,  and  of  speeches  of  members  of 
parliament,  retreat  into  that  minute  image  without 
loss  of  letter  or  even  minutest  mark  of  punctuation, 
so  the  vast  history  of  the  human  family,  coming  in 
from  old   Asia  or  New  America,  flying  back  from  the 


16^  THE  LOST  PARADISE. 

days  of  Solomon,  or  Caesar,  or  Napoleon,  betakes  itself 
into  this  first  picture  of  man,  and  finds  there  a  perfect 
image  of  all  its  joy  and  grief  and  of  the  causes  pro- 
ducing them.  In  one  of  the  Arabian  stories  a  sight- 
seer beheld  a  long,  bright  cloud,  which,  like  a  column 
of  smoke  from  a  volcano,  reaching  out  over  the  sea, 
began  to  withdraw,  and  watching  it  he  saw  it  hide 
itself  all  away  in  a  copper  vase  on  the  beach,  a  vase 
which  a  fisherman  could  have  carried  in  one  hand  to 
his  hut.  Whoever  looks  out  upon  the  great  outspread 
human  race,  and  then  looks  at  this  first  of  Genesis, 
will  seem  to  have  found  an  urn  containing  all  of 
human  life  and  death,  greatness  and  weakness.'  Sub- 
sequent centuries  have  been  only  the  enlargement  of 
the  picture.  Paradises  innumerable  have  come  and 
gone ;  Adams  and  Eves  many  have  one  day  been 
happy  and  the  next  day  been  exiles,  and  always  for 
the  same  reason,  a  disregard  of  di^•ine  law. 

Before  we  look  at  some  of  these  mirrored  causes 
of  human  failure  and  success,  let  us  recall  to  mind 
what  a  large  part  of  this  story  of  the  garden  of  Eden 
must  be  true  even  if  it  made  no  pretense  to  being  an 
inspired  narrative.  It  is  not,  certainly,  a  myth  that 
there  is  a  human  race ;  and  hence,  there  must  have 
been  a  first  pair  in  this  long  series,  and  this  first 
pair  must    have  had  a  first  home  and   a  Creator  just 


THE  LOST  PARADISE.  165 

at  hand ;  and  this  pair  must  have  made  their  first 
move  in  virtue  or  sin ;  and  from  what  sin  we  now 
see  in  the  world,  not  much  doubt  can  remain  as  to 
what  line  of  conduct  this  first  pair  followed,  and  that 
they  early  left  a  paradise  of  virtue  is  the  verdict  of 
history.  The  theory  most  in  conflict  with  this  Bible 
picture  of  primitive  man  is  the  almost  popular  notion 
that  man  is  a  gradual  result  of  progress  in  the  animal 
kingdom,  and  never  had  a  paradise,  but  is  on  the  way 
toward  one,  from  a  cellular  and  electric  starting-point 
a  million  years  back.  Against  this  theory,  however, 
rises  up  the  fact  that  in  the  thousands  of  years  of  his- 
tory no  animal  is  showing  the  least  sign  of  passing 
over  into  that  moral  consciousness,  that  selfhood  which 
so  wonderfully  distinguishes  man.  The  highest  order 
of  brutes  are  doing  absolutely  nothing  toward  forming 
a  language  or  toward  reaching  that  consciousness  of 
"  me "  and  '^  not  me,"  which  joins  man  to  the  Divine ; 
there  is  no  effort  visible  on  the  part  of  the  most 
intelligent  qiiadrumana  to  build  a  school-house  or  start 
a  country  newspaper ;  and  if  in  the  historic  period  no 
progress  whatever  has  been  made,  and  that  too  with 
the  advantage  of  human  association,  what  could  they 
have  done  in  two  historic  periods?  If  six  thousand 
years  give  nothing,  what  will  six  million  years  give? 
The  best  reason  I  can  myself  bring  to  bear  upon  this 


166  THE  LOST  PARADISE, 

matter  leads  me  to  see  man  setting  forth  as  man,  and 
setting  forth  from  a  Creator ;  hence  he  had  a  place 
which  we  may  call  Eden,  and  easily  reason  may  join 
the  Bible  in  giving  it  river  banks  and  trees  and 
flowers  and  the  song  of  birds. 

Let  us  now  in  imagination  visit  this  primitive  man 
in  his  Selkirk  loneliness,  and  find  what  there  was  in  his 
situation  which  explains  the  loss  of  that  Eden,  and  the 
loss  of  so  many  blessed  homes  since  that  early  banish- 
ment. I  shall  not  try  to  gather  up  all  the  facts  of  the 
case,  for  this  would  involve  a  discussion  of  free-will,  and 
of  the  relation  of  a  perfect  God  to  the  fact  of  evil  in  his 
world.  We  must  omit  much,  also,  of  the  poetic  medi- 
tation our  century  might  weave  over  that  little  era. 
Let  me  ask  you  to  notice  only  one  fact  in  the  surround- 
ings of  original  man,  the  fact  that  he  was  ordered  to 
live  a  restricted  life,  and  must  not  expect  to  be  as  bound- 
less as  God.  The  situation  we  may  suppose  to  be  ex- 
pressed in  these  words:  "Thou,  oh  man,  mayest  claim 
a  grand,  large  world,  but  it  shall  not  be  infinite;  there 
is  a  tree  of  which  thou  shalt  not  eat ;  between  thee  and 
perfect  absolutism  a  great  dividing  ocean  must  always 
roll.  Thy  world  shall  not  be  the  whole  universe,  but 
only  a  continent.  Thy  power,  thy  ambition,  thy  knowl- 
edge, shall  be  within  banks  —  beautiful  banks,  indeed, 
with  sunshine  and  flowers,  but  still,  boundaries  to  check 


THE  LOST  PARADISE.  167 

thy  stream."  Such  was  the  situation,  indeed,  for  we 
read  it  no  longer  in  Genesis  alone,  but  in  subsequent 
facts  which  have  removed  the  picture  from  the  danger 
of  mythology,  and  have  stereotyped  it  in  all  history. 
This  law  of  limitation  man  did  not  respect,  but  de- 
clared himself  to  be  monarch  of  all ;  and  soon  afterward 
he  found  himself  an  exile,  and  a  flaming  sword  waving 
between  him  and  the  tree  of  life  —  between  him  and  the 
absolutism  of  God.  This  is  the  event  which  history  has 
taken  up  and  verified,  not  only  in  nations  but  in  almost 
each  individual  heart;  and  out  of  this  long  history 
comes  to  us  to-day,  in  loud  accents,  the  announcement 
of  a  great  principle,  that  human  life  is  a  restricted  life, 
a  life  subject  to  law,  and  that  he  who  confesses  this  sub- 
jection remains  in  Eden,  he  who  denies  it  is  banished. 
The  antiquarians  are  seeking  the  place  where  the  first 
Eden  must  have  been ;  but  while  they  thus  seek,  let  us 
behold  in  all  the  ruins  between  Babylon  and  Rome 
places  where  the  gates  of  happiness  have  been  closed 
only  because  the  inmates  of  the  garden  declined  to  ac- 
cept a  world  limited  by  any  law  or  presence  of  God, 
but  daily  hurled  their  free-will  along  as  though  the  hu- 
man heart  were  the  only  deity.  Just  as  the  body  will 
flourish  only  under  its  limited  quantity  of  labor,  or  food, 
or  pain,  or  pleasure,  so  the  soul  is  encompassed  by  its 
peculiar  laws,  and  all  its  development  and  happiness  lie 


168  TUB  LOST  PARADISE. 

within  those  God-made  walls,  and  the  hour  that  sees 
man  reaching  his  hand  for  fruits  beyond  these  walls, 
sees  the  Haming  sword  drawn  between  by  the  hand  of 
the  Invisible.  The  human  soul  was  filled  with  a  group 
of  virtues,  but  each  one  of  these  was  marked  with  its 
confines,  beyond  which  was  grief.  Each  virtue  had  its 
own  forbidden  tree.  Take  any  one;  for  example,  am- 
bition. By  its  powerful  stimulus,  society  has  been  car- 
ried along  to  success  and  happiness.  The  eloquence  of 
old  statesmen  from  Pericles  to  Burke,  the  sweetness 
of  poetry  from  Sappho  to  Bryant,  the  beauty  of  art 
from  Phidias  to  Angelo,  the  struggles  for  liberty  from 
the  Hebrew  slaves  to  the  American  colonies,  have  all 
come  in  part  from  the  sentiment  of  ambition  which  has 
everywhere  filled  the  soul  with  nobleness,  and  has  re- 
doubled its  power  and  desire  to  escape  degradation,  and 
rise  up  to  a  holier  region  of  being  and  action.  Before 
all  minds  there  is.  an  ideal  excellence  in  the  depart- 
ment of  their  special  industry.  The  world  despises 
the  one  who  has  not  the  ambition  to  seek  the  better 
thing  along  his  path.  We  all  scorn  the  heart  that  has 
no  noble  impulse.  Having  now  found  this  tree  of  which 
one  may  eat,  and  of  whi^h  all  noble  souls  have  eaten, 
we  immediately  perceive  that  God  has  placed  restric- 
tions in  this  garden,  and  has  said  there  is  one  tree  of 
which  you   may   not    eat.      This    ambition    must   flow 


THE  LOST  PARADISE.  169 

within  a  limited  cliannel.  It  must  be  clothed  with 
humility ;  not  with  the  vanity  of  an  Alexander ;  not 
with  the  presumption  of  a  Herod,  who  desired  to  be 
called  a  god ;  not  with  the  insane  hungering  of  Cardi- 
nal Wolsey,  who  wept  forth,  "  Fling  away  ambition ; 
by  that  sin  fell  the  angels" — for  the  instant  this  sen- 
timent passes  the  confines  of  the  most  tender  justice 
toward  others,  or  begins  to  make  the  heart  aspire  to- 
ward the  throne  of  the  Almighty,  the  paradise  all  dis- 
solves, and  no  researches  can,  after  a  time,  find  any 
traces  of  the  Eden  which  this  heart  possessed  before  the 
"  vaulting  ambition  "  had  '*  overleaped  itself."  Litera- 
ture is  full  of  praise  of  this  sentiment  in  its  young, 
sweet  days,  and  equally  full  of  sad  requiems  over  the 
grave  of  its  final  dishonor.  Shakspeare  says,  "  Who 
soars  too  near  the  sun  with  golden  wings,  melts  them." 
Another  says  this  "ambition  is  the  mind's  immodesty." 
Byron  says,  "  Blood  is  valuable  to  wash  ambition's 
hands ;"  and  you  all  remember  now  the  familiar  line : 

"  The  path  of   glorv  leads  but  to  the  grave." 

It  may  be  singular  that  in  the  same  garden  there 
may  be  trees  of  which  all  may  eat,  and  then  near  by, 
growing  in  the  same  soil,  a  tree,  of  which  eating,  thou 
shalt  surely  die ;  but  such  is  the  worl  d  into  which  we 
are  bom,  and  the  boundary  having  been  crossed,  light 


170  THE  LOST  PARADISE. 

begins  to  flide,  the  rose  turns  into  a  thorn,  the  vine  into 
a  thistle,  and  the  heart  that  was  happy  yesterday  to-day 
"  eats  its  bread  in  the  sweat  of  the  face."  At  nisrht 
the  soul's  dew  is  only  bitter  tears.  We  have  all  seen 
this  sentiment  (and  I  use  it  only  to  illustrate  a  whole 
class)  feeding  upon  the  heart  and  soul  of  statesmen, 
leading  them  away  from  study,  from  wisdom,  from 
honor,  and  from  all  happiness,  and  finally,  as  Lilly  says, 
it  knows  but  two  steps,  one  down  to  blood  or  another 
up  only  so  far  as  envy.  Thus  the  very  hands  which  are 
appointed  of  the  Creator  to  build  up  a  paradise  stand 
ever  ready  to  pull  it  down  again  if  a  given  boundary 
is  passed.  TJie  love  of  money  is  a  lawful,  most  wise 
sentiment.  There  are  few  scenes  more  charming  than 
that  of  an  industrious  man  acquiring  each  year  property 
which  may  help  him  to  contentment  or  may  furnish 
the  table  of  his  children,  and  stand  between  them  and 
beggary  and  hardship  and  vice.  This  love  of  gold, 
rising  up  with  civilization,  is  a  cause  of  human  progress. 
It  is  therefore  a  paradise  builder,  but  just  by  it  is  a 
tree  of  which  you  may  not  eat.  It  is  a  tree  of  life  and 
death  with  you,  and  eating  of  it  the  face  whitens,  the 
features  harden,  the  heart  shrivels,  and  miser  (the 
miserable)  is  written  upon  the  brow,  the  worst  curse- 
mark  from  mankind  or  God.  It  is  almost  an  occupation 
of  a  year  to  look  over  literature  to  learn  what  terms 


THE  LOST  PARADISE.  171 

it  has  tried  to  find  worthy  of  application  to  so  wretched 
a  member  of  society.  Even  old  Publius  said  :  "  The 
miser  is  remarkable  in  that  he  wants  what  he  already 
has."  Another  says :  "  A  miser's  life  is  an  act  at 
which  we  applaud  only  the  closing  scene."  But  this 
wretched  mortal  is  only  a  sentiment  which  has  in  a 
brief  time  traveled  from  a  paradise  to  a  hell.  It  is 
man  out  of  his  boundary. 

Thus  it  appears  that  the  foundation  stone  of  human 
life  is  that  of  obedience  to  law.  God  only  is  absolute. 
He  graciously  fashioned  a  life  apart  from  Himself. 
He  crowned  it  with  His  image,  a  shadow  of  Himself; 
but  as  He  made  the  ocean  to  roll  between  shores,  and 
said  to  it,  "  Thus  far  shalt  thou  come,  and  no  farther, 
here  shall  thy  proud  wave  be  stayed,"  so  He  placed 
the  created  soul  between  banks,  and  said,  here  only 
may  thy  bright  waters  flow.  The  banks  are  not  nar- 
row. Human  life  need  not  be  called  a  river,  for  it  is 
vast  as  the  ocean,  deep  and  strong  and  sublime ;  but 
it  has  a  shore  all  around  to  separate  it  from  God,  and 
along  that  shore  the  cherubim  stand,  and  flaming 
swords  gleam  to  banish  those  who  cross  the  boundary 
marked  all  around  by  the  finger  of  the  Almighty.  In. 
such  a  limited  but  vast  world  it  is  easy  to  see  what 
is  that  thing  called  sin.  "  It  is  a  want  of  conformity 
unto,  or  actual  transgression  of,  the  law  of  God."     The 


1T2  THE  LOST  PARADISE. 


industrious  man  God  loves,  but  the  miser  has  taken  a 
beautiful  sentiment  and  transgressed  it,  abused  it, 
reviled  it,  crucilied  it.  The  noble  aspirations  of  the 
young,  God  loves,  but  the  vanity  of  an  Atilla,  or  a 
Belshazzar,  or  a  Csesar,  or  a  Napoleon,  where  the  soul 
cuts  all  the  bands  of  justice  and  of  humility,  finds  at 
last  a  lonely  grave  at  St.  Helena,  or  at  some  feast 
reads  upon  the  wall  the  -words  of  sudden,  helpless 
doom,  and  Babylon  is  dust.  Sin,  then,  is  an  uprising 
of  the  heart  against  God,  it  is  the  overflow  as  a  stream 
once  beautiful,  saying,  "  I  will  be  a  river  no  more,  I 
will  expand  into  infinite  space  and  be  a  law  and  a 
shore  unto  myself  alone."  If  there  be  a  secret  of 
human  well-being  and  real  triumph,  it  must  lie  in  a 
full  appreciation  of  the  grand  breadth  of  life  and  then 
in  a  willingness  to  pause  the  instant  the  foot  comes  to 
a  boundary  of  God.  Years  ago,  when  universal  liberty 
began  to  be  discussed  in  our  National  Congress,  one 
distinguished  speaker  arose  and  said :  ''  I  desire  to 
speak  to-day  of  some  laws  greater  than  any  passed  in 
this  capital  or  in  this  country,  older  than  America, 
older  than  India,  —  I  mean  the  laws  of  God."  This 
was  a  sentence  full  of  real  eloquence.  But  it  was  true, 
not  as  to  human  politics  alone,  but  as  to  the  whole 
heart  and  mind  of  man.  Here  we  all  are  to-day,  in  a 
wide   world    indeed,    but    on    all    sides,  our    love,    our 


THE  LOST  PARADISE.  173 

ambition,  our  pleasures,  our  action  toward  our  fellow- 
men  and  toward  self,  are  to  act  within  the  laws  of  the 
Almighty.  As  a  bird  can  fly  only  within  the  atmo- 
sphere, and  may  move  a  thousand  miles  along  the  sur- 
face of  the  beautiful  earth,  but  not  far  upward  away 
from  its  bowers,  so  man  may  move  within  certain 
confines,  but  the  moment  he  reveals  any  "want  of 
conformity  unto,  or  any  transgression  of,  the  law  of 
God,"  his  world  is  ruined  in  all  its  beauty  and  delicate 
plan. 

It  is  wonderful  that  the  human  heart  is  not  so 
thankful  for  the  gift  of  life  as  to  be  perfectly  w^illing 
to  accept  of  the  limitations  which  surround  it,  and  be- 
ing in  a  vast  garden,  with  only  one  tr.ee  denied,  and 
with  a  whole  forest  of  sweet  fruits  on  all  sides  and 
free,  it  is  marvelous  that  we  do  not  cheerfully  accept 
the  situation,  and  leave  the  forbidden  fruit  to  bloom  and 
ripen  and  decay  untouched,  undreamed  of.  But  such  is 
not  our  history,  and  hence  earth,  from  the  Eden  of 
the  Euphrates  to  the  prairies  of  the  West,  is  covered 
with  the  ruins  of  homes  once  full  of  honor  and  happi- 
ness. Permit  me  to  illustrate  our  theme.  Many  years 
ago,  a  beautiful,  educated  lady  of  Sandusky  grew 
weary  of  her  home.  It  was  a  good  earthly  paradise. 
Her  husband,  her  little  daughter,  her  music,  her 
wealth,    made   her   home  not   one  of  public  contempt, 


174  THE  LOST  PARADISE. 

but  of  public  admiration  and  envy.  The  poor  looked 
at  her  mansion  as  at  a  land  of  the  blest.  But  her 
heart  seems  not  to  have  known  that  human  life  has 
boundaries,  that  love  has  its  ordinary  channels  and  is 
not  absolute  as  immensity ;  seems  not  to  have  remem- 
bered that  the  bird  can  indeed  fly  sweetly,  but  only 
in  its  narrow  atmosphere,  and  thus  oblivious  of  the 
dividing  cherubim  in  Eden,  she  fled  with  a  high 
official,  the  collector  of  the  city,  that  in  the  glori- 
ous tropic  land  amid  perpetual  spring  and  flowers, 
they  might  build  up  a  home,  not  of  mild  content- 
ment, but  of  unmingled  bliss.  But  this  poor  heart 
in  one  short  summer  time  found  that  happiness  is 
a  dependent  plant,  having  its  roots  interwoven  with 
other  plants,  and  when  lifted  from  its  companions 
withers  and  dies.  Leaving  her  little  daughter  in  a 
grave  among  the  tropic  flowers,  w^hich  made  a  happier 
wreath  for  the  dead  child  than  for  the  living  mother, 
our  poor  exile  fled  with  her  companion  to  the  Mau- 
ritius, hoping  a  still  more  beautiful  clime  might  bring 
back  the  color  to  her  face  and  peace  to  her  heart. 
But  it  was  not  the  climate  nor  the  dead  girl,  that  was 
waging  war  upon  that  cheek  and  heart.  It  was  God. 
She  had  gone  beyond  the  dividing  line  in  Eden,  and 
she  was  being  expelled  from  paradise.  Each  hour  the 
cherubim  and   the   flaming   swords   were   crowding  be- 


THE  LOST  PARADISE.  1T5 

tween  her  and  the  blessed  home  of  her  sinless  years. 
She  started  in  most  abject  desolation  of  spirit  to  sail 
back  for  the  old  home,  but  in  mid-ocean  her  broken 
heart  ceased  to  beat,  and  those  silent  ocean  depths  be- 
came her  tomb.  Oh,  what  paradises  are  being  daily 
lost  in  this  reckless,  thoughtless,  even  God-defying 
world !  Happiness  is  interwoven  with  justice.  But 
this  lamented  lady  tore  it  from  its  soil  and  inweaving 
it  with  injustice  toward  her  husband,  her  child,  her 
friends,  herself,  and  society,  and  her  God,  she  ex- 
pected it  to  become  absolute  bliss,  but  she  found  that 
the  laws  of  the  Almighty  coald  not  be  broken,  but  that 
in  this  conflict  it  is  always  the  heart  that  breaks. 

It  is  not  in  this  domain  of  love  only  that  success 
is  limited  by  a  most  divine  and  careful  justice.  In 
all  business  life  and  social  life,  there  is  a  forbidden 
tree  of  which,  having  eaten,  the  soul's  peace  begins 
to  die. 

Not  many  months  ago  one  of  our  own  bankers 
disappeared.  Upon  a  certain  morning  a  few  poor  peo- 
ple who  went  to  the  accustomed  steps  to  draw  some 
fragment  of  their  carefully  gathered  savings,  found, 
to  their  dismay,  that  the  doors  were  closed  against 
them.  The  scene  soon  became  pitiful.  There,  behind 
those  doors,  live  hundred  persons  —  widows,  orphans, 
servant    girls,    poor   workingmen,    making   up    a    large 


170  THE  LOST  PARADISE. 

part  of  the  multitude  —  had  gone  in  months  and  years 
past  to  lay  down  with  a  smile  of  confidence  and  suc- 
cess the  savings  of  liard  toil.  And  the  banker  was, 
in  those  days,  also  kind  and  affable,  and,  perhaps, 
deeply  honest.  He  was  happy,  too,  but  he  forgot  the 
conditions,  the  limitation  of  happiness.  It  escaped  him 
that  human  life  has  around  it  a  line  like  that  once  at 
the  base  of  Sinai,  to  cross  which  is  death,  the  soul  is 
pierced  through  with  a  dart.  And  there  is  no  depart- 
ment in  God's  world  where  the  line  of  duty  is  so 
plainly  marked  out  as  in  the  banking  part  of  this 
large  Eden.  Its  law  is  this:  "That,  which  is  taken 
in  over  the  counter  must  be  handed  back  again." 
Not  to  hand  back  the  deposited  gold  is  the  forbidden 
tree.  The  banker,  disregarding  this  limitation,  not 
only  the  weeping  widows  and  orphans  crowd  around 
the  marble  steps,  but  the  cherubim  and  flaming  sword 
of  Genesis  quickly  rush  between  the  banker  and  his 
paradise.  Upon  a  certain  morning,  as  we  said,  this 
citizen  was  wanting.  He  had  no  choice  left  but  to 
fly  from  the  friends  of  years,  from  his  home,  from  a 
city  he  loved,  and,  above  all,  from  the  good  name 
which  he  once  possessed.  And  in  this  long,  w^ordless 
absence  has  he  been  happy?  Does  the  heart  die  that 
eats  of  the  forbidden  tree  ?  Two  weeks  ago  there 
came  to  me  a  letter  from  a  distant  point,  not  even  a 


THE  LOST  PARADISE.  1T7 


town,  but  a  place  where  steamers  touch,  and  where 
the  postmark  is  written  with  a  pen ;  and,  upon  open- 
ing this  letter,  it  is  a  simple  burst  of  sorrow  from 
this  cultivated,  exiled,  lonely  and  repentant  man.  It 
was  never  my  lot  to  know  or  even  meet  this  citizen, 
but  in  his  banishment  and  apparent  grief  he  has  come 
to  days  when  he  wishes  to  empty  his  heart  of  so 
much  of  its  bitterness  as  words  and,  no  doubt,  teal's 
can  take  away.  I  give  here  a  few  words  from  his 
long  letter,  not  only  because  they  may  help  -young 
men  in  coming  hours  when  temptation  may  assail, 
but  because  the  far-away  writer  of  them  would  be 
perfectly  willing  thus  to  warn  the  young  business 
friends  he  left  here,  and  would  no  doubt  gladly  see 
them  avoiding  his  method  of  blighting  life's  hope. 

"  With  what  a  heart-burning  and  contrition  I  look 
back  upon  a  ruined,  shipwrecked  life  can  be  known  only 
to  the  great  Searcher  of  hearts.  *'  *  *  I  always 
knew  what  was  right,  but  religion  was  with  me  only  an 
intellectual  conviction,  not  an  active  life  within,  in- 
fluencing and  'controlling  my  actions,  and  hence  when 
temptation  came  to  accumulate  riches,  I  yielded  and 
fell,  and  have  lost  my  good  name ;  have  made  my  family 
miserable,  and  caused  distress  upon  a  wide  circle.  I 
flattered  myself  that  there  would  be  time  and  some 
way  to  avert  any  calamity,  and  thus,  between  flattery 
12 


178  THE  LOST  PARADISE. 

and  self-deception,  the  day  of  accounting  came,  and  I 
woke  to  find  the  ship  run  into,  and  the  water  pouring 
in  at  all  points.  X  was  going  to  the  bottom.  *  *  * 
Oh,  is  there  not  some  truth  to  be  so  known  and  seen 
as  to  be  fully  appreciated,  and  thus  poured  all  through 
my  spiritual  life,  and  bending  my  wull  and  feelings  all 
beneath  its  folds  ?  *  -^^  *  I  stand  afar  off  and  have 
hardly  courage  to  lift  my  eyes  toward  God.  Let  rae 
not  be  forgotten  in  your  prayers.  In  longings  for 
Christ,  your  brother.     *     -^     * " 

Yes,  there  is  a  truth,  of  a  twofold  nature,  able  to 
meet  this  whole  question  of  a  paradise  lost.  The 
truth  that  God  is  around  every  individual  soul  with 
His  bounding  will,  is  one  which  if  regarded  will  keep 
the  Eden  blessed  so  far  as  earth  can  any  longer,  by 
the  path  of  humble  obedience  alone,  find  a  spiritual 
peace.  The  citizen  who,  to  the  best  of  his  light, 
humbly  walks  with  God,  is  permitted  to  move  among 
his  fellow-men,  enjoying  the  swxets  of  hope  and  friend- 
ship, and  the  esteem  of  society.  For  him  there  is  no 
banishment,  no  bitter  tears.  But  this  truth  is  no 
longer  wide  enough  to  meet  the  wants  of  man,  for 
he  is  already  out  of  his  best  paradise,  he  is  away  from 
his  God.  This  truth,  therefore,  assumes  another  form. 
We  call  it  Jesus  Christ.  He  came  to  earth  to  rebuild 
the   torn   down   Edens   of  us  all.     We   are   all    exiles. 


THE  LOST  PARADISE.  179 

Our  tears  might  well  mingle  with  those  of  the  exiled 
banker,  if  he  be  penitent,  and  we  may  say  along  with 
him,  "We  stand  afar  off."  This  Christ  has  fulfilled  a 
law  which  we  have  broken,  and  to  us,  no  longer  able 
to  flee  unto  ourselves  and  find  peace.  He  says,  "  Come 
unto  Me  all  ye  that  labor  and  are  heav}^  laden,  and 
I  will  give  you  rest."  At  His  voice,  all  divine, 
the  cherubim  that  stand  between  Him  and  the  para- 
dise lost  fall  back,  fall  back,  and  lo,  the  exile,  peni- 
tent and  loving  and  trusting,  sees  the  gate  of  joy 
open  again,  and  he  hears  not  only  the  angels  rejoice 
over  the  sinner  that  repenteth,  but  he  hears  the  for- 
giveness of  his  fellow-men,  and  the  paradise  that  is 
destined  to  be  perfect  beyond  this  world  begins  now 
and  here  to  cast  forward  some  of  its  liofht,  and  it 
dries  up  tears  and  binds  up  broken  hearts,  and  calls 
back  exiles  all  along  this  side  the  tomb. 


POSITIVE   RELIGION, 


ser:mon  X. 

POSITIVE   RELIGION. 


"  Think  not  that  I  am  come  to  destroy  the  law  or  the  prophets. 
I  am  not  come  to  destroy  but  to  fulfill." — Matt.  5:17. 

nrXASMUCH  as  the  Jewish  ceremonial  law  was  to 
^  be  abolished  by  this  Christ,  and  inasmuch  as  the 
state  laws  so  far  as  they  were  cruel  and  unjust  were 
also  about  to  be  set  aside,  the  Savior  must  have 
alluded  here  to  the  moral  law  in  its  broadest  sense, 
as  being  written  or  unwritten.  He  had  just  enu- 
merated several  of  these  higher  laws,  such  as  '•  Blessed 
are  the  pure  in  heart,"  "  Blessed  are  those  that  hunger 
and  thirst  after  righteousness."  After  enumerating  quite 
a  number  of  sublime  principles.  He  said  that  whoever 
should  break  the  least  of  these  commandments  and 
teach  men  so,  should  be  least  in  the  kingdom  of 
heaven,  and  the  converse  also  was  stated.  Thus  we 
perceive  that  Christ  in  this  great  chapter  had  risen  to 
an  upper  air  far  above  the  ceremonial  law  and  far 
above   those   state   laws    that   had   been    valuable   in    a 


184  POISITIVE  RELIGION. 

particular  time,  but  formed  no  part  of  the  world's 
perpetual  and  unchanging  good.  Among  the  ever- 
lasting law  and  prophets  which  Christ  came  not  to 
destroy,  He  soon  includes  what  we  now  call  the 
golden  rule  and  the  law  of  loving  even  one's  enemies. 
In  a  word,  Christ  came  not  as  an  innovator,  or  a  dis- 
turber of  the  world's  peace,  but  as  the  best  friend  of 
man,  to  set  in  clear  light  what  had  been  standing  in 
deep  shadow.  He  was  a  progress  along  a  path  in 
which  men  were  already  walking,  but  with  such  slow- 
ness and  such  stumbling  as  to  awaken  divine  pity. 
From  this  text,  therefore,  I  shall  ask  you  to  draw 
the  lesson  of  jpositiveness  in  religion^  a  lesson  of 
warning  against  that  unbelief  which  seems  so  popular 
in  our  day.  ^j  unbelief  I  do  not  mean  that  form 
of  it  which  simply  rejects  what  is  called  the  orthodox 
faith,  but  that  form  of  it,  now  prevalent,  which  dis- 
trusts everything  hitherto  grouped  under  the  name  of 
religion,  from  the  being  of  a  personal  God  to  the  doc- 
trine of  a  future  existence.  The  unbelief  of  Thomas 
Paine  and  Hume  was  chiefly  against  any  revealed  reli- 
gion ;  but  the  unbelief  of  our  day  is  against  even  a 
natural  religion,  and  is  little  less  hostile  to  a  Christ 
than  to  a  God. 

Against   that  criticism  of  the   present  which  is  not 
a  development  so  much  as  a  destruction,  I  would  love 


POSITIVE  RELIGION.  185- 

to-day  to  argue  in  favor  of  positivism,  of  fulfillment 
rather  than  of  this  interminable  and  dreary  destruction 
of  old  ideas.  Let  us  first  notice  that  thought  has  its 
habits  just  as  the  drinking  man  or  the  opium  eater, 
or  as  has  the  benevolent  man  or  the  warrior.  When 
the  benevolent  man  walks  through  the  streets  of  a 
city  he  hears  every  cry  of  distress  from  man  or  brute, 
and  when  the  military  soul  passes  along  the  same 
thoroughfare  he  sees  soldiers  in  the  workmen,  and  cav- 
alry chargers  in  the  horses  that  draAv  the  carriages 
upon  the  avenues.  But  there  is  nothing  in  nature 
that  limits  habit  to  any  one  department  of  life.  All 
of  Nature's  laws  are  universal,  and  hence  that  peculiar 
condition  called  habit  will  attach  itself  to  the  loo^ical 
faculty  as  readily  as  to  the  appetite  of  the  drunkard, 
or  the  gait  of  one  who  walks,  or  the  tones  and  ges- 
tures of  one  who  speaks.  It  will  come  to  pass  that 
the  reasoning  power  will  in  successive  periods  acquire 
habits  that  will  carry  it  beyond  propriety,  beyond  wis- 
dom, and  make  it  a  slave  of  custom  rather  than  the 
wise  king  of  society.  In  the  age  preceding  our  own, 
reason  operated  chiefly  in  the  domain  of  the  marvelous. 
!N"ot  having  found  the  modern  great  premise  that  the 
universe  is  pervaded  by  general  law,  but  ha^dng 
adopted  another  major  premise,  that  God  and  Satan 
came    forward    each    day    with    new    and    independent 


l^(>  POSITIVE  liELIGlUN. 

events  of  good  or  evil,  the  reason  of  that  period  bus- 
ied itself  in  tindino'  in  what  dream  or  in  v^hat  occur- 
rence  these  mysterious  wonder-workers  had  last  ap- 
peared, and  what  lessons  were  to  be  drawn  from  the 
miracles  of  yesterday  or  last  night.  The  great  universe 
of  law  had  not  yet  arisen  upon  their  intellects  or 
hearts.  Such  became  their  habit  of  expecting  the 
miraculous  that  all  ordinary  events  disgusted  them  by 
their  monotony,  ^nd^  left  them  longing  for  a  daily  in- 
vasion from  lawless  powers  of  the  air.  In  such  iron 
chains  did  this  habit  hold  the  past  that  even  Luther 
hurled  his  inkstand  at  the  devil,  and  Sir  Matthew 
Hale  saw  old  women  possessed  of  witches  which  bore 
these  aged  people  through  the  air,  and  made  omni- 
present and  fiendish  persons  who  to  all  conamon  ap- 
pearances were  at  home  innocent  and  even  gentle  and 
aifectionate.  To  overthrow  this  base  of  reasoning  that 
the  world  was  ruled  by  two  powers,  God  and  Satan, 
who  invaded  human  life  afresh  each  day  with  events 
without  human  cause,  and  substitute  a  platform  of 
law,  making  the  world  intelligible  and  its  causes  and 
effects  in  a  degree  attainable  or  avoidable,  was  an 
immense  task,  for  society  had,  in  all  its  long  career, 
been  inwoven  with  and  entangled  among  the 
mysteries  of  superstitious  belief,  and  to  escape  the 
habit  was   like  asking  a  new  era   to   make  an   entirely 


POSITIVE  RELIGION.  187 

new  order  of  souls.  But  vast  as  the  task  was,  it  was 
undertaken  consciously  and  unconsciously,  and  year 
by  year  visions  and  dreams  and  miracles  and  witches 
and  goblins  and  ghosts  were  expelled  from  the  only 
place  where  they  ever  existed  —  the  brain  of  man. 
Look  back  for  a  moment  and  see  what  a  burden 
of  superstition  had  to  be  cut  away  from  man's 
shoulders ;  and  it  was  not  like  cutting  the  straps  of 
a  camel's  load  in  the  desert,  but  it  was  like  removing 
a  tumor  from  the  brain  itself  All  the  long  way 
from  the  time  when  Eomulus  and  Remus  were 
nursed  by  a  wolf  to  the  time  when  Luther  saw  Satan, 
and  when  the  Catholic  church  saw  Luther's  soul  borne 
to  hell  by  a  procession  of  ravens,  and  when  the  same 
church  saw  the  Virgin  Mary  standing  upon  a  beauti- 
ful hillside,  and  to  our  own  ancestors  who  would  not 
cross  their  knife  and  fork  upon  their  plate  for  fear  of 
a  dire  calamity,  the  human  family  has  been  the  per- 
fect victim  of  a  logic  which  reasoned  not  from  a  basis 
of  a  universe  of  law,  but  from  a  basis  of  divine  and 
Satanic  originality  and  caprice. 

In  the  conscious  and  unconscious  work  of  over- 
throwing this  past,  human  logic  was  compelled  to 
become  destructive.  Before,  it  had  believed  every- 
thing. ]N^ow,  its  first  duty  was  to  doubt.  It  was 
compelled  to  distrust  everything  in  order  that  it  might 


188  POSITIVE  RELIGION. 

urge  a  reform.  Luther  himself  was  a  transition  be- 
tween credulity  and  skepticism,  for  though  he  retained 
much  superstition  he  plead  for  new  light.  He  warred 
against  the  old  church  and  against  the  old  music,  and 
against  the  prevailing  practice  of  medicine,  so  he  is 
seen  as  a  point  where  the  old  is  dying  away  and  the 
i\ew  coming  into  life.  N^ow  the  lesson  to  be  inferred 
from  these  old  facts  is  that  reason  has  for  generations 
near  by  been  busy  in  the  work  of  destruction.  It  has 
had  to  tear  down  a  civilization  badly  founded  and 
badly  built,  and  it  has,  therefore,  to-day,  the  associa- 
tions of  destructions,  and  ruins,  and  debris,  and,  at 
last,  instead  of  having  a  habit  of  perfect  credulity,  it 
has  reached,  I  fear,  the  habit  of  perfect  destruction. 
If,  as  we  have  said,  mind  may  form  its  habits,  and, 
indeed,  it  evidently  does  form  them,  and  if,  for  three 
hundred  years,  it  has  been  destroying  the  awful  follies 
of  thousands  of  years,  may  we  not  well  fear  that  it 
has  come  forth  from  this  long  slaughter  of  ideas,  sigh- 
ing, like  an  Alexander,  for  other  worlds  to  conquer. 
When  we  behold  a  reason  in  thousands  of  public 
places,  and  in  a  still  larger  multitude  in  what  we  call 
"private  life,"  busy  taking  down  the  ideas  of  God, 
and  worship,  and  sin,  and  virtue,  and  of  a  future  life, 
we  cannot  but  feel  that  reason  has  formed,  or  is  form- 
ing,   a   passion    of   destruction   which    will    soon   leave 


POSITIVE  RELIGION.  189 

mankind  nothing  in  its  hands  except  eating,  and  drink- 
ing and  death.  As  it  was  difficult  or  impossible  for 
Alexander  to  combine  a  love  of  war  and  a  love  of 
peace,  so  it  seems  impossible  for  our  modern  reason, 
coming  in  from  the  glorious  victories  of  a  hundred 
battle-fields,  to  repose  in  the  peace  of  the  Sermon  on 
the  Mount,  or  the  world's  old  cardinal  truths  of  re- 
ligion. I  confess  there  is  nothing  that  may  command 
a  halt  to  the  passion  of  destructive  criticism,  for,  like 
Xapoleon,  it  is  free  to  destroy  worlds  as  long  as  it 
can  find  them ;  but  while  no  one  has  power  to  check, 
yet  we  all  have  the  privilege  of  attempting  to  advise 
or  dissuade,  and  of  commending  a  path  better  than 
that  of  destruction. 

As  to  this  destructive  inquiry  about  God,  reducing 
Him  to  an  oxygen  or  an  unconscious,  unknown  agency, 
we  may  well  recall  the  fact  that  there  is  no  moral 
proposition  which  may  not  by  the  same  devotion  to 
skepticism  be  stricken  out  from  the  catalogue  of  beliefs. 
Logic,  if  well  followed,  may  lead  us  to  doubt  whether 
there  is  such  a  thing  as  beauty,  whether  there  is  such  a 
thing  as  honor,  such  a  thing  as  benevolence,  such  a 
thing  as  mind,  such  a  thing  as  gratitude  or  pure  affec- 
tion. When  it  comes  to  a  search  for  periect  assurance, 
then  we  soon  ruin  the  moral  world,  for  there  is  no 
perfect  assm-ance  in  it  or  any  part  of  it,  and  hence  the 


lyO  POSITIVE  RELIGION. 

logic  which  seeks  that  assurance  can  only  destroy.  It 
must  come  back  each  evening  saying,  "  There  is  no 
virtue,  no  sin,  no  mind,  no  God."  When  logic  informs 
you  and  me  that  God  is  a  law  or  a  widespread  blind 
agency,  let  us  not  -be  deceived,  for  all  it  has  done  is  to 
take  away  our  God.  It  has  not  given  us  a  positive 
origin  of  the  universe,  for  if  positiveness  is  unattainable, 
reason  will  in  a  few  years  confess  itself  to  be  as  un- 
certain about  its  data  as  it  is  to-day  about  the  data  of 
the  Christian.  Perfect  assurance  is  just  as  impossible 
to  a  fi^ee  religionist  or  atheist  as  it  is  to  the  Christian. 
Remembering,  therefore,  that  there  is  no  moral  idea 
of  beauty,  or  love,  or  soul,  that  may  not  be  denied,  and 
remembering,  too,  that  the  assurance  that  there  is  a 
God  is  always  logically  equal  to  the  opposite  belief, 
why  should  we  not  abandon  a  criticism  that  only 
destroys,  and  clasp  to  our  souls  the  grand  things  we 
possess,  and,  Christ-like,  live  not  to  destroy,  but  to  fulfill. 
The  worth  of  life,  and  its  happiness  too,  have  always 
come  from  the  affirmation  of  such  propositions  as 
demand  action.  Life  is  valuable  according  to  its  love, 
not  according  to  its  hate.  It  is  of  little  value  to  hate 
sin  unless  that  implies  an  active  love  of  virtue.  The 
former  gives  only  a  refrain,  a  refusal  to  act  badly,  the 
latter  gives  positive  virtuous  action. 

Tlie   "  free   religion,"    so   called,    which   denies   our 


POSITIVE  RELIGION.  191 

idea  of  prayer,  dissuades  from  hymn,  and  from  hope  in 
a  future  life,  does  nothing  but  empty  the  mind  and  the 
heart,  and  hence  can  never  build  up  a  great  life  unless 
emptiness  of  soul  is  one  of  the  foundations  of  greatness. 
All  the  moral  greatness  of  the  past  is  based  upon  the 
assumption  of  such  notions  as  God  and  worship  and 
immortality  and  benevolence,  and  virtue  and  duty.  The 
great  names  all  grow  up  out  of  such  a  soil.  These  propo- 
sitions filled  the  old  hearts  that  made  this  good  world 
which  we  enjoy,  with  its  education,  its  liberty,  its 
morals,  its  religion.  It  is  too  late,  it  seems  to  me,  to 
ask  mankind  to  empty  its  mind  of  all  these  old,  grand 
ideas,  and  then  expect  a  grandeur  of  character  to  spring 
up  from  nothingness  as  a  soil,  and  to  grow  in  a  space 
which  has  no  rainfall,  no  dew,  no  sunshine,  but  which 
is  only  a  vacuum.  To  expect  a  good  soul  to  germinate 
in  a  soil  of  negation,  and  grow  in  a  vacuum,  is  to 
cherish  a  frail  hope,  and  yet  this  is  the  prospect  to  which 
what  is  called  "  free  religion  "  is  itself  hastening  and 
inviting  us. 

The  exact  antithesis  of  this  emptpng  process  is 
Jesus  Christ  and  all  who  follow  him.  He  came  to 
fulfill.  Under  the  method  of  modern  unbelief  the 
life  of  man  daily  becomes  narrower.  The  belief  in 
a  God  and  the  attendant  worship  of  Him,  with  all 
its  trust,   and   hope,   and   virtue,   has   occupied   a   vast 


192  POSITIVE  RELIGION. 

space  in  Iminan  life ;  and  when  to  this  we  add  the 
kindred  ideas  of  heaven  and  endless  existence,  we 
have  a  vast  world  of  thought  and  sentiment,  which, 
when  taken  away  from-  the  heart,  must  leave  life  nar- 
row indeed.  But  thus  exactly  does  the  criticism  of 
to-day  narrow  life  and  transform  it  from  a  stream  that 
Avidens  into  an  ocean  into  a  little  thread  which  runs 
between  some  chemical  action  and  a  grave.  Modern 
criticism  seems  a  pursuit  of  the  infinitely  little,  a 
search  for  the  microscopic  atom,  not  only  of  man's 
body,  but  of  his  virtue  and  hope.  Reason  being  just 
as  powerful  for  the  Christian's  God  as  against  Him, 
the  scales  should  be  easily  turned  in  the  Christian's 
favor  by  the  weight  of  those  positive  actions,  and 
duties,  and  pleasures,  and  hopes,  with  which  it  occu- 
pies the  soul.  It  fills  the  human  life  to  overflowing. 
The  radical  unbeliever  must  sit  down  in  despair. 
Unbelief  says,  "I  believe  not  in  God,  hence  not  in 
prayer,  not  in  virtue,  not  in  sin,  not  in  man's  great- 
ness, not  in  his  future  beyond  the  grave.  Hence  let 
me  alone.  I  shall  sit  here  forever,  and  ponder  and 
wonder,  and  then  die."  But  with  as  much  of  abstract 
reason  upon  his  side,  the  positively  religious  man  finds 
no  hour,  no  year  of  nothingness,  but  all  his  years,  be 
they  fourscore,  are  full  of  activity  and  hope.  There 
is  no  eclipse  of  the  life  that  now^  is,  for  it  is  granted 


POSITIVE  RELIGION.  193 

every  pleasure,  every  pursuit,  ever  honor,  ever)^  indus- 
try. There  have  been  religionists  who  have  thought 
it  necessary  to  make  this  life  miserable  in  order  that 
they  might  find  joy  in  the  next.  It  was  the  habit 
of  semi-barbarous  ages  to  suppose  that  each  present 
thing  will  find  its  contradiction  in  the  future,  and 
that  the  poor  shall  be  rich,  and  the  rich  poor.  Fol- 
lowing this  old  trace  of  disappointment,  many  not 
semi-barbarous  still  fear  to  be  very  happy  to-day  lest 
such  a  state  will  forebode  evil  to-morrow.  For  reasons 
evident  and  obscure  there  have  been  religionists,  Chris- 
tians indeed,  who  have  made  this  life  wretched  that 
the  next  may  be  its  opposite  and  be  happy ;  but  this 
folly  of  yesterday  counts  no  more  against  Christianity 
than  the  errors  of  old  astronomy  or  old  politics  weigh 
against  the  real  truth  in  those  sciences. 

Eeligion  grants  everything  to  this  life  that  belongs 
to  human  nature.  It  is  the  angel  of  the  street  and 
the  house  carrying  to  one  integrity  and  benevolence, 
to  the  other  love  and  tenderness.  Did  religion  not 
come  last  week  and  wreathe  your  homes  with  ever- 
greens and  flowers,  and  blend  with  all  that  is  joyous 
in  youth  or  old  age?  Does  it  not  adorn  your  mar- 
riage altars  and  breathe  its  benediction  there,  and  when 
we  bury-  the  dead,  whatever  of  peace  and  consolation 
there  is  in  the  last  hour  comes  up  from  the  lips  of 
13 


194  POSITIVE  RELIGION. 

religion.  As  understood,  at  last,  religion  is  the  angel 
of  joy  to  this  world,  and  hence  is  a  grand  fulfilling  of 
its  most  sacred  longings  and  prophecy.  And  then  by 
its  vast  estimate  of  a  life  beyond,  by  the  swelling 
music  of  immortality,  it  expands  the  idea  of  life  on 
this  shore  and  thus  dignifies  man  by  loading  him  with 
this  infinite  outcome  of  himself.  When  Gustavus 
Adolphus,  of  Sweden,  saw  before  him  the  destiny  of 
king,  his  heart  and  mind  began  to  live  in  a  nobler 
atmosphere.  In  morals,  in  study,  in  heroism  he  imme- 
diately arose  above  his  fellow-men  and  died  at  last 
leaving  mankind  to  wonder  whether  he  was  not 
the  noblest  man  that  had  graced  earth.  But  this 
spiritual  greatness  he  drew  from  the  realization  of  a 
great  future.  Coming  events  cast  not  only  their 
shadow,  but  their  light  and  music  and  inspiration,  be- 
fore. Our  positive  Christianity  thus  not  only  fills  each 
day  full  of  its  own  special  joy  and  work  and  peace, 
but  it  pours  around  the  present  the  atmosphere  of  a 
great  future,  for  which  destiny,  greater  than  that  of  a 
throne  in  Sweden,  the  mind  and  heart  secretly  gird 
themselves  in  their  early  and  later  years.  Thus,  while 
a  destructive  criticism,  which  in  our  days  often  passes 
under  the  name  of  reason,  and  often  under  the  ambig- 
uous  name  of  "free  religion,"  is   plainly  seen   narrow- 


POSITIVE  RELIGION.  195 

ing  the  life  which  it  calls  ''broad,"  is  plainly  seen 
sitting  down  in  despair,  powerless  to  saj  more,  or  do 
more,  or  hope  more,  the  positive  faith  of  Christendom 
widens  life  in  every  particular  of  its  thought  or  emo- 
tion or  work.  The  religion  of  Christ  is  a  wonderful 
fulfillment  of  mankind's  conclusions  in  morals  and  in 
blessed  anticipation.  The  great  heathen  world  is  not 
overthrown  in  the  New  Testament,  but  is  fulfilled 
there  in  its  essential  thoughts.  The  morals  and 
prayers  of  Aurelius  and  Seneca,  the  maxims  of  India, 
the  prayers  of  the  Greek  prophets  and  oracles,  the 
treasures  of  a  past  world,  are  found  in  the  Gospels,  as 
flowers  cast  into  the  fabled  Alpheus  were  said  to  come 
forth  fresh  in  a  far-off  island,  at  the  fountain  of  Are- 
thusa.  A  distinguished  teacher  recently  from  Siam 
says  that  the  Buddhists  accept  of  Christ  most  readily 
when  they  compare  his  spiritual  teachings  with  their 
own,  and  thus  find  him  to  be  only  the  perfection  of 
their  own  reason  and  sentiment.  They  love  him  when 
they  find  that  he  has  not  come  to  destroy,  but  only 
to  lead  higher  by  a  similar  but  more  sublime  fiight. 

The  lessons,  therefore,  which  I  would  offer  to  those 
here  this  morning  who  may  not  be  members  of  any 
Christian  church,  and  who  after  this  closing  service 
may  not   perhaps,  all   of  them  at  least,  depend   upon 


196  POSITIVE  RELIGION. 

tliis   place   and    hour   for   any    Sunday  morning   lesson 
in  religion,  are  these : 

(1)  In  a  critical  age  that  has  so  many  errors  to  be 
destroyed,  reason  acquires  a  destructive  habit ;  and 
against  this  habit  one  must  guard,  lest  instead  of  being 
a  light  to  guide  us,  reason  becomes  only  a  mildew 
to  blight  a  world  once  beautiful. 

(2)  The  soul  grows  great  and  useful  and  happy,  not 
by  what  it  denies,  but  by  what  it  cordially  affirms  and 
loves.  Distrust  is  the  death  of  the  soul,  belief  is  its 
life.  The  just  shall  live  by  faith.  Infidelity  is  the 
abandonment  of  life  —  a  suicide  of  the  spirit. 

(3)  Should  you  not  all  seek  union  wdth  some  posi- 
tive, active,  singing,  praying,  trusting  church?  What 
errors  any  Christian  church  may  hold  will  not  harm 
half  so  much  as  its  active  truths  will  bless.  Let  the 
church  you  seek  be  "  free,"  not  free  in  its  unbelief, 
free  in  its  atheism,  but  free  in  its  deliverance  from 
superstition,  and  free  in  its  noble  manhood,  that  fears 
no  one  but  God.  Let  the  church  you  seek  be  hroad, 
but  not  broad  in  its  destructiveness,  but  in  its  soul 
and  hopes  and  charity ;  not  broad  by  the  absence  of 
God,  but  by  His  infinite  presence;  not  broad  like  the 
Sahara  in  its  treeless,  birdless,  dewless  sands ;  not 
broad  like  the  Arctic  sea  in  perpetual  silence  and  ice, 


POSITIVE  RELIGION.  197 

but  broad  like  an  infinite  paradise,  full  of  all  verdure, 
all  fruits,  all  music,  all  industry,  all  happiness,  all  wor- 
ship, wide  enough  in  its  gates  and  confines  to  repeat 
the  Savior's  invitation,  "  Come,"  to  all  the  children  of 
this  outer  wilderness. 


CHRISTIANITY  AS  A  CIVILIZATION. 


SEEMOIN'  XI. 
CHRISTIANITY  AS  A  CIVILIZATION 


'And  he  shall  sit  as  a  refiner  and  purifier  of  silver." — Mai.  3  :  3. 

TN  discussing  the  proposition  suggested  by  this  text, 
-^  that  Christianity  is  a  civilization,  it  will  be  neces- 
sary to  think  of  civilization  in  two  lights  —  the  one  as 
:he  condition  of  the  individual,  the  other  as  a  power  to 
nfluence  others  standing  apart  from  its  condition.  What 
mankind  needs  is  not  simply  a  picture  of  an  elevated 
kiman  life,  but  also  an  agency  that  will  rapidly  cast  men 
into  the  likeness  of  this  ideal  picture.  Individuals  have 
slways  been  visible  here  and  there  who  have,  in  their 
ninds  and  hearts,  reflected  the  features  of  almost  the 
Heal  manhood,  but  their  virtues  have  been  unable  to 
multiply  themselves  infinitely  in  the  outer  v/orld;  and 
living,  they  never  perceived  virtue  to  have  gone  out 
from  their  garments  at  a  world's  touch ;  and  dying,  they 
iave  taken  their  moral  excellence  into  their  tombs,  as 
Beatrice  took  away  her  beauty  with  her,  and  as  the  dy- 
ng  songstress  recently  took  with  her,  forever,  her  warm 


202  CHRISTIANITY  AS  A   CIVILIZATION. 

melody.  History  is  dotted  over  with  names  of  such 
piety  as  marked  Aurelius,  and  Cato,  and  Xenophon; 
but  as  between  the  stars  of  heaven,  there  are  awful  soli- 
tudes across  which  light  itself  flies  invisible,  and  which 
no  sound  of  even  thunder  or  softest  music  has  evei 
blessed,  so  between  these  isolated  characters  of  the 
past,  there  have  lived  and  died  countless  millions  of  t-he 
human  family,  without  excellence  and  without  hope  — 
awful  solitudes  of  the  soul.  In  seeking,  therefore,  for  i. 
desirable  civilization,  it  is  necessary  for  us  to  find  i 
culture  that  will  overflow.  We  seek  a  Nile  that  shal. 
cross  its  banks  in  June,  and  make  the  whole  adjoining 
empire  pass  from  a  wilderness  to  a  garden.  That  this 
is  what  we  should  seek  may  be  learned  in  an  instan: 
by  a  glance  at  the  world,  for  that  glance  reveals  the  fac: 
that  the  moral  harvest  of  any  one  age  is  only  a  redupli- 
cation of  the  seed  sown  in  the  age  before;  that,  fo:* 
example,  the  Christian  church  is  only  a  reduplicatioi 
of  the  Seventy,  the  Seventy  a  harvest  from  the  Twelve, 
the  Twelve  an  overflow  from  Christ,  with  Christ  him- 
self an  outreaching  from  eternity.  Thus  it  becomes  pei- 
fectly  evident  that  when  we  seek  a  civilization,  we  must 
find  one,  if  possible,  that  possesses  the  aggressive  powe: 
and  genius  that  will  open  out,  fan-like,  and  pass  from 
one  to  many,  incapable  of  rest  as  to  labor,  and  as  to  its 
aspirations  and  conquests.     Christianity  seems  to  me  to 


CHRISTIANITY  AS  A   CIVILIZATION.  203 

surpass  all  other  reforms  in  these  two  needed  particu- 
lars; it  presents  us  with  a  high  type  of  manhood,  and 
a  manhood  that  flows  outward  from  one  to  many.  Let 
us,  then,  direct  our  attention  first  to  the  Christian  char- 
acter as  a  civilization. 

Impossible  or  difficult  as  it  may  be  to  find  a  defi- 
nition of  civilization,  it  will  answer  the  demands  of 
the  hour  in  which  we  meet  together  as  a  public,  com- 
mon assemblage,  and  not  as  exact  philosophers,  if  we 
state  that  man  is  civilized  when  all  his  faculties  of 
mind  and  heart  are  active  within  their  spheres,  not 
falling  short  of  Nature's  law  nor  going  beyond  it. 
Under  "  faculties "  must  be  included  conscience  and  all 
the  tender  sentiments  of  friendship,  love,  sympathy, 
and  religion,  for  without  these  a  character  may  possess 
greatness  in  many  respects,  but  not  that  perfect  blend- 
ing which  seems  to  give  us  the  perfect  manhood.  The 
word  whose  definition  we  seek  primarily  means  fitted 
for  organized  society,  fitted  for  the  state.  The  wild 
man,  whose  club  is  his  law,  may  become  so  trans- 
formed in  thousands  of  years  that  he  is  fitted,  at  last, 
for  a  home  in  a  community,  where  many  ages  and 
conditions  and  qualities  of  soul  meet  with  equal  rights, 
and  where  egotism  must  give  place  to  the  confession 
of  others.  Out  of  the  peculiar  demands  of  society, 
demands   for   reciprocity,  for  kindness,  for   liberality  of 


204  CHRISTIANITY  AS  A   CIVILIZATION. 

thought,  for  respect  to  law  and  morals,  and  out  of 
the  mental  and  aesthetic  culture  which  the  wise  state 
brings,  to  be  fitted  for  state  life  soon  came  to  be 
synonymous  with  the  idea  of  perfect  manhood.  Ed- 
mund Burke  says :  "  The  spirit  of  civilization  is  com- 
posed of  two  parts,  the  spirit  of  a  gentleman  and  the 
spirit  of  religion."  This  is  only  another  w^ay  of  in- 
forming us  that  civilization  is  a  life  lived  as  in  the 
presence  of  man  and  God.  But  cull  the  definition 
from  what  fields  you  may,  and  express  it  in  what 
words  you  prefer,  and  yet  the  New  Testament, 
through  Christ  in  His  discourses,  or  through  Paul  in 
his  letters,  will  surpass  all  other  analyses,  from  sources 
modern  or  ancient.  When  to  personal  purity  of  deed, 
and  even  of  thought,  Christ  adds  the  command  to 
love  one's  neighbor  as  one's  self  and  to  be  kind  even 
to  enemies,  he  has  reached  the  ideal ;  for  when  the 
wave  of  virtue  fiows  within  the  heart,  and  the  wave 
of  good  deeds  flows  outside,  all  around,  we  have 
found  a  manhood  full  armed  for  life  in  its  varied  re- 
sponsibilities. It  would  seem  that  Paul,  in  his  chapter 
upon  charity,  was  expressly  describing  the  perfect  gen- 
tleman. "  Charity  sufiereth  long  and  is  kind.  Charity 
envieth  not.  Charity  boasteth  not  itself,  is  not  puffed 
up,  doth  not  behave  itself  unseemly,  seeketh  not  her 
own,  is  not  easily  provoked,  thinketh  no  evil,  rejoiceth 


CHRISTIANITY  AS  A   CIVILIZATION.  ^Uo- 

not  in  iniquity,  but  rejoicetli  in  the  truth ;  beareth  all 
things,  believeth  all  things,  hopetli  all  things,  endureth 
all  things."  Evidently  in  living  up  to  such  a  picture 
we  should  all  make  a  grand  approach  toward  a  civil- 
ized life.  It  was  truly  said  by  the  free-thinking  Mrs. 
Jameson  that  "  Christianity  is  a  beautiful  civilization." 
From  causes  which  we  cannot  enumerate  here,  public- 
ists have  been  unwilling  to  look  at  the  religion  of  the 
Bible  in  any  other  light  than  that  of  a  special  mode 
of  escape  from  future  ills,  ills  beyond  the  grave ;  and 
wishing  to  study  the  philosophy  of  states,  the  condi- 
tions of  a  good  citizenship  here,  have  turned  over  all 
heathen  pages  and  over  all  other  pages  not  set  apart 
by  and  for  a  priesthood.  It  has  long  been  a  custom 
of  philosophic  minds  to  pass  in  silence  any  lessons  of 
civilization  upon  the  pages  of  Scripture,  and  patiently 
to  seek  and  deeply  to  love  everything  in  Aristotle  or 
Plato  —  a  blossoming  of  prejudice  only  paralleled  by 
the  Christians  who  despise  everything  from  Plato  or 
Aristotle. 

Permit  me  now  to  assume  that  the  truly  Chris- 
tian character  is  a  highly  civilized  character,  for  this 
is  not  an  important  branch  of  our  inquiry.  To  dis- 
cover a  good  analysis  of  the  ideal  man  is  not  so  diffi- 
cult as  it  is  to  find  some  power  that  may  induce 
the    largest   nimaber    to    come    up    toward    this   ideal. 


206  CHIUSTIANITY  AS  A   CIVILIZATION. 

Hence,  our  second  proposition,  that  Christianity  pos- 
sesses in  a  hirge  measure  tlie  power  to  influence  those 
standing  afar  ofl",  is  the  question  of  most  interest  and 
the  work  of  most  difliculty,  for  even  could  we  draw 
from  the  classic  or  Hindoo  world  a  complete  defini- 
tion of  manhood  we  should  seem  to  need  a  Christ 
to  enable  the  human  race  to  realize  the  dream  betrayed 
in  the  definition. 

In  order  to  produce  a  universal  manhood,  we  must 
find  a  truth  that  overflows,  a  philosophy  the  opposite 
of  egoism^  a  philosophy  deeply  altruistic.  Our  world 
of  love  must  include  our  neighbor — for  human  welfare 
does  not  spring  only  from  what  one  has,  but  from  what 
this  favored  one  can  or  will  give  away.  A  religion  in 
which  one  good  man  becomes  ten  good  men  is  the 
only  one  that  will  offer  society  hope.  Now  the  grand 
attribute  of  Christ  and  His  method  is  this  living  for 
others.  Christ  Himself  was  a  putting  aside  of  Heaven's 
peace  and  joy  for  earth's  sorrow,  a  springing  away  from 
His  own  life  and  a  descent  into  human  life.  His  heart 
burst  the  limitations  of  self,  and  so  loved  the  world 
that  He  scattered,  as  it  were,  the  garments  of  His 
own  glory  over  the  unclothed  human  race,  that  they 
might  each  possess  a  wedding  garment,  and  He  opened 
over  earth  an  urn  of  righteousness  that  sinners,  poor 
in    such    riches,    might    gather   up   this   manna,    rained 


CHRISTIANITY  AS  A   CIVILIZATION.  207 

down  in  the  night,  and  be  just  at  last  before  God. 
Thus,  if  there  is  one  sentence  which  more  than  others 
may  express  the  genius  of  this  Christ,  it  is  this :  ''  He 
was  a  goodness  that  rolled  outward,  a  love  whose  rays, 
like  those  of  the  sun,  darted  away  from  itself.  How 
far  the  light  of  our  sun  may  fly  before  it  becomes 
invisible !  Let  us  suppose  an  earth  ten  times  as  far 
away  as  our  own,  would  still  catch  some  daily  smiles 
from  that  orb,  you  can  imagine  what  a  vast  circle, 
two  thousand  millions  of  miles  wide,  would  all  be 
filled  perpetually  by  the  light  of  that  central  fire.  * 
In  the  world  of  morals,  Christianity  is  a  love  which 
thus  from  one  heart  moves  outward  and  contemplates 
nothing  less  than  shining  upon  each  face  that  is  seen 
or  shall  be  seen  walking  the  paths  in  this  vale.  Chris- 
tianity is  not  by  accident  nor  by  common  natural  law 
only,  but  by  its  whole  special  genius  and  yearnings,  a 
contagion  of  truth  and  virtue.  As  God  placed  in  the 
grain  of  wheat  a  hidden  germ  by  which  that  one 
grain  will  become  a  hundred,  and  will  not  by  any 
means  remain  in  its  egoism  unless  it  die,  so  in  the 
religion  of  Jesus  there  is  an  implanted  longing,  such 
that  no  Christ-like  soul  will  consent  to  walk  along 
through  life  or  to  heaven  without  wishing  to  drag  all 
society  with  it  to  the  sublime  destiny.  It  would  be 
vain,  so  far  as  all  society  is  thought  of,  if  Christ's  reli- 


208  CHRISTIANITY  AS  A   CIVILIZATION. 

gion  held  only  good  doctrines  for  individual  hearts, 
for  only  here  and  there  one  would  find  them,  just 
as  Marcus  Aurelius  found  piety  and  Zenobia  virtue. 
It  is  not  enough  that  faith  in  the  Divine  Being  is  a 
saving  influenge,  and  that  repentance  is  also  a  saving 
grace,  and  that  a  new  heart  is  possible,  and  that 
pardon  is  possible  in  the  Christian  system;  but,  given 
these  great  paths  to  heaven,  it  is  essential  that  those 
who  find  them  receive  along  with  them  a  desire  to 
hurl  their  sunlight  outward  upon  faces  standing  in  the 
valley  and  shadow  of  death.  Above  all  other  systems 
Christianity  is  an  aggressive  civilization.  Its  hearts  are 
in  Greenland  to-day  among  the  snows,  and  in  Ceylon 
among  the  flowers,  in  Africa  among  the  negroes,  in 
Oregon  among  the  Indians,  bearing  all  hardships, 
because  their  religion  is  the  overthrow  of  self  and 
the  enthronement  of  mankind ;  an  imitation  of  the 
cross  where  the  blessedness  of  the  multitude  was  pur- 
chased by  the  sorrows  of  one. 

Having  seen  now  that  Christianity  possesses  the 
two  elements  of  a  civilization,  the  ideal  and  the  power 
to  spread  the  ideal,  let  us  defend  it  against  some  parts 
of  its  history.  Our  age  alone  is  the  fortunate  one  that 
has  come  anywhere  near  reading  aright  the  religion 
of  Christ.  I  will  confess  that  all  intermediate  ages 
have   attempted   to   spread    their   religion,    but    almost 


CHRISTIANITY  AS  A   CIVILIZATION.  209 

the  only  element  they  drew  from  their  Divine  Savior 
was  the  desire  to  make  their  faith  universal.  But 
what  the  faith  was,  or  how  to  make  their  neighbor 
receive  it,  they  seem  never  to  have  dreamed.  It  does 
not  argue  against  a  sentiment  that  men  have  erred  as 
to  what  path  it  should  follow.  The  Hindoo  mother 
loves  her  child  and  often  for  that  reason  tosses  it  to 
the  Ganges  god ;  and  there  was  an  old  nation  once  in 
which  filial  love  made  it  customary  to  put  the  old 
father  and  mother  to  death  when  their  powers  were 
well  along  in  decline;  and  yet  the  sentiments  of 
maternal  and  filial  love  are  sacred  sentiments,  and  ask 
only  that  they  may  flow  in  the  channels  of  pure  reason. 
Thus  the  zeal  for  spreading  religion  is  Christ-like,  and 
is  the  hope  of  the  world,  but  it  must  make  no  mistake 
and  slaughter  a  group  of  Jews  or  burn  an  infidel,  for 
in  doing  so  it  sustains  the  same  relation  to  a  religious 
sentiment  that  the  mother  sustains  to  the  maternal 
instinct  who  offers  her  child  to  a  god,  or  that  the 
children  sustain  to  filial  love  who  put  to  death  their 
grand,  old,  loving  parents.  When  we  read  in  the 
reign  of  Frederick  that  when  a  Christian  child  dis- 
appeared it  was  customary  to  rush  forth  and  accuse  and 
kill  a  few  Jews,  and  that  three  hundred  Jews  were  put 
to  death  on  account  of  the  disappearance  of  three  boys, 
which  bovs  were  afterward  found  in  a  stream,  where 
14 


210  GHRI8TIANITT  AS  A   CIVILIZATION. 

they  had  been,  all  alone,  playing  upon  the  ice,  and 
had  broken  in  without  any  Jewish  assistance,  we  can 
no  more  reproach  Christianity  than  we  may  charge 
religion  in  general  with  the  deaths  under  juggernaut, 
or  with  the  burning  of  widows.  In  all  that  cruel  era 
there  was  little  trace  of  Christ  as  unfolded  in  the  Testa- 
ment ;  and  in  a  large  part  of  the  era  when  church  and 
state  were  identified  little  remained  of  Christianity 
except  the  disposition  to  spread  itself ;  it  lost  all  else ; 
it  xietined  itself  to  be  jpower  and  spread  itself  by  the 
sword.  While,  however,  with  the  calmest  minds  the 
actual  history  of  this  sublime  religion  does  not  vitiate 
its  theory,  yet,  it  being  a  fact  that  the  great  public  is 
not  remarkable  for  calm  justice,  confidence  in  Chris- 
tianity as  a  reform  seems  to-day  greatly  shaken,  and  it 
will  need  all  the  wisdom  and  piety  and  tenderness  of 
its  friends  for  a  century  to  make  it  stand  forth  before 
the  human  race  as  the  most  complete  savior  of  men.  I 
fully  believe  that  this  religion  of  Jesus  could  be  so 
preached,  and  so  lived,  and  so  applied  to  society,  that 
in  two  generations  a  pure  rationalism  (excluding  the 
supernatural)  or  a  cold  materialism  would  nowhere  be 
taught ;  and  that  legislators  and  statesmen  would  begin 
their  careers  by  a  study  of  Christ  as  a  teacher  and  an 
impulse.  Suppose  that  in  all  the  next  half  century 
the  church  should   resume  the   idea   of   an  overjloioing 


GURISTIANITY  AS  A   CIVILIZATION.  211 

religion,  as  Christ  held  it  and  acted  it ;  that,  widening 
out  from  fashionable  avenues  and  costly  churches,  and 
the  luxury  of  a  saint's  rest,  it  should  reach  out  its 
hands  to  the  poor  and  build  a  score  of  neat  churches 
in  this  city,  furnished  with  organ  and  books,  and  with 
a  teacher  for  each  who  understood  and  loved  the  popu- 
lace ;  imagine  the  whole  church  to  change  its  whole 
policy  for  this  fifty  years,  and,  instead  of  running  from 
the  multitudes,  actually  turn  and  go  toward  them,  as 
the  women  are  now  going  toward  the  crowds,  carrying, 
not  an  abstract  definition  of  Trinity  and  atonement, 
but  prayers  and  hymns,  and  a  sufficient,  inviting,  per- 
suading, mediating  Christ,  and  if  Christianity  did  not 
in  the  end  wring  from  the  world  the  confession  that 
it  alone  is  a  civilizing  power  worthy  of  earth  and 
heaven,  then  it  would  seem  that  the  relation  between 
cause  and  effect  is  only  a  delusion.  Open  this  religion 
and  you  will  see  the  wheels  of  a  great  machine.  As 
the  ponderous  engine  hurls  the  steamship  from  America 
to  England,  makes  it  run  like  a  vast  shuttle  from  shore 
to  shore,  thus  the  gospel  of  Christ  lies  ready  to  move 
all  society,  and  make  it  fly  from  vice  to  virtue,  though 
wide  is  the  dark  sea  between.  But  not  yet  has  the 
church  put  this  machinery  into  motion.  When  our 
government,  a  few  years  ago,  gave  the  Japanese  a 
locomotive  and   car,    and  put   down   for  them   a  circle 


2U  CHRISTIAmTT  AS  A   CIVILIZATION. 

of  track,  that  foreign  land  was  delighted ;  but,  strange 
delight !  it  led  the  officials  to  go  upon  festal  days  and 
ride  around  the  magic  iron  ring,  giving  them  a  school- 
boy happiness,  but  not  leading  them  to  throw  a  line 
quickly  across  the  empire.  Are  you  prepared  to  deny 
that  thus  we  have  used  the  Christian  religion?  Have 
we  not  kept  it  for  home  use  and  refused  to  fling  it 
across  the  empire  ?  Instead  of  preaching  the  gospel  to 
ten  thousand  people  is  not  each  clergyman  employed 
to  preach  it  ten  thousand  times  to  the  same  people? 
The  life  of  Christ,  the  life  of  His  disciples,  the  history 
of  all  revivals  from  Paul's  day  to  Wesley's  and  White- 
field's  and  to  our  own  Moody's,  announce  the  genius 
of  Christianity  to  be  that  of  outgoing  love,  a  love  which 
grows  by  going  and  dies  in  any  confinement,  in  any 
repose. 

This  trait  of  ideal  Christianity  that  is  an  action 
rather  than  a  philosophy  has  been  often  the  accidental 
cause  of  its  shame,  as  well  as  the  perpetual  cause  of 
its  honor.  A  prominent  reason  why  the  reforms  of 
Mill  and  Comte  and  The  Westminster  Review  have 
remained  so  beautiful  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that 
they  have  descended  into  the  dust  of  actual  work.  It 
is  not  Comte  or  Tyndall  who  must  plead  with  the 
begrimed  miners  of  England,  it  is  Moody  and  Sankey. 
Hence    upon    these    last    names    must    gather    all    the 


CHRISTIANITY  AS  A   CIVILIZATION.  213 

associations  of  the  ragged  clothes,  the  superstition  and 
fanaticism  of  the  crowd.  From  Gibbon  to  Huxley, 
rationalism  has  never  stirred  up  the  untaught  multi- 
tude, but  has  enjoyed  the  better  association  of  porches 
of  philosophy  and  shelves  of  walnut  in  the  library. 
When  we  saw  in  the  exposition  the  many  elegantly 
painted  reaping  machines,  we  stole  a  glance  into  the 
future  and  pictured  them  as  they  would  appear  after 
they  had  been  dragged  over  the  prairies  from  June  to 
September.  The  rational  methods  have  received  greet- 
ings in  the  temples  of  learning  and  art,  and  we  behold 
the  whiteness  of  their  vesture  and  their  calmness  of 
face,  and  on  the  other  side  we  behold  the  Christian 
Idea  with  the  forehead  marked  with  care  and  browned 
in  the  sun,  but  we  forgive  this  marred  beauty,  for  we 
know  in  what  wide  fields  of  time  and  eternity  she  has 
toiled  since  Bethlehem,  and  upon  us  bursts  the  vision 
of  One  "whose  visage  was  so  marred  more  than  any 
man,  and  His  form  more  than  the  sons  of  men."  So 
far  as  rationalistic  reforms  have  escaped  the  historic 
association  of  fanaticism  and  bloody  persecutions,  so  far 
as  they  have  burned  no  Servetus  and  banished  no 
Quakers,  the  desirable  result  must  be  attributed  in 
part  to  the  fact  that  they  are  a  theory  more  than  a 
life ;  the  opposite  of  Christianity,  for  the  moment  it 
learns  of  its  Master  and  its  heaven,  it  rushes  forth  and 


til4:  VHRJISTIANITY  AS  A   CIVILIZATION. 

permits  the  beggar  to  associate  his  rags  with  this  Jesus, 
and  the  Methodist  to  pierce  his  sky  with  shonts,  the 
temperance  women  to  kneel  in  the  streets,  and  the 
African  slaves  to  sing  rude  hymns  all  night  long  in  a 
strange  ecstacy  around  this  cross. 

Christ  has  stood  so  near  the  people  that  they  have 
wreathed  his  cross  with  their  infirmities  at  the  very 
hour  when  they  crowded  around  it  to  hnd  their  salvation. 
And  it  is  this  nearness  to  the  human  heart  which  has 
made  Christianity  drench  with  blood  fields  over  which 
infidelity  would  have  whispered  "peace,"  for  religion 
has  always  been  an  active,  powerful  sentiment,  and 
hence  its  errors  have  been  as  active  as  its  truths.  As 
jealo-u'sy  attends  love  and  is  impossible  in  cold,  indif- 
ferent hearts,  so  often  cruelty  has  gathei*ed  about 
reliu'ion  in  its  dark  cloud :  but  those  awful  facts  re- 
veal  a  passion  which  shall  become  the  world's  hope 
far  beyond  any  promise  which  a  cold,  intellectual 
reform  can  ever  offer  to  mankind.  As  love  in  a  wrong 
path,  or  itself  wronged,  may  become  an  agony  and  a 
cruelty,  but  in  its  full  light  and  wisdom  opens  out 
into  a  paradise,  so  Christianity,  escaping  from  errors 
of  doctrine  and  practice,  opening  forth  in  all  its  fullness 
of  truth  and  in  all  its  divineness  of  method  —  a  method 
by  which  one  heart  transfers  its  truth  and  hope  to  its 
neighbor's    heart  —  flowing    beyond   old    channels    and 


CHRISTIANITY  AS  A   CIVILIZATION.  215 

breaking  over  into  tlie  fields  of  the  poor,  poor  in  gold 
and  in  virtue ;  thus  rushing  outward  with  Christ  every- 
where for  its  leader  and  motive,  Christianity,  I  repeat, 
will  either  become  the  world's  civilization  or  else  we 
must  bow  in  sorrow  and  declare  the  generations  to 
come  of  sin  and  wrong,  to  be  utterly  without  hope. 
It  may  not  be  easy  to  feel  that  Christ's  gospel  shall 
reform  the  world,  for  the  world  is  so  vast  that  our 
feeble  minds  may  be  forgiven  if  they  are  appalled  at 
the  task,  but  it  seems  easy  to  feel  that  this  gospel  is 
the  only  hope,  for  to  truths  the  most  divine  and  the 
most  complete,  omitting  nothing  that  pertains  to  mind, 
body,  and  soul,  that  pertains  to  the  now  or  the  future, 
it  goes  beyond  this  rare  excellence  and  adds  that  with- 
out which  all  truth  is  vain,  a  spiritual  awakening  and 
inspiration.  It  is  not  ideas  alone  that  transfomi  the 
world,  but  ideas  with  an  inspiration  in  them  crowding 
them  from  dream  to  life.  The  truths  of  Christ's  reform 
possess  that  impulse  which  comes  from  their  lying 
out-spread  not  only  in  the  light  of  earth,  but  in  that 
of  eternity.  Kot  only  the  happiness  of  society  here  is 
in  them,  but  hell  and  heaven  fill  them  up  with  their 
awful  or  sweet  mystery,  their  fear  and  hope.  But  their 
cup  of  virtues  is  not  yet  full,  for  Christ  is  in  it  also 
not  as  a  teacher  only,  who  is  simply  remembered,  but 
as  an   ever-present  spirit  cheering  the  soul  to-day  just 


216  CHRISTIANITY  AS  A   CIVILIZATION. 

as  lie  blessed  men  eighteen  hundred  years  ago ;  and  if 
the  heart  need  anything  more  it  may  find  it  in  the 
consciousness  that  the  Father  of  all,  the  Almighty,  lies 
under  these  ideal  truths,  lifting  them  up  into  life  as 
He  moves  the  ocean  into  storm  or  -smiles. 

Here,  then,  is  a  reform  adequate  in  its  truths  and 
in  its  motives.  What  detains  it  from  its  great  mission  ? 
It  waits  simply  for  man.  It  waits  for  the  church  to 
escape  from  the  letter  which  killeth  to  the  spirit  which 
giveth  life;  it  waits  for  the  Christian  throng  to  enter, 
not  their  sanctuary  only,  vocal  with  music  and  elo- 
quence, but  the  world,  vocal  with  wailings  and  eloquent 
with  tears ;  waits  for  its  ministry  to  pass  from  doctrines 
which  confuse  the  intellect  and  transform  the  church 
into  a  school  of  debate,  to  the  doctrines  which  lie  upon 
human  life  like  a  child  upon  its  mother's  heart,  dear 
and  inseparable ;  waits  for  a  breadth  of  mind  and  soul 
to  come  that  will  not  contract  theology  into  the  limits 
of  a  stagnant  pool,  but  will  expand  it  into  an  ocean 
such  that  along  with  faith  and  repentance  all  the  char- 
ities, and  all  liberty,  and  all  culture,  and  all  the  great 
temperance  pleadings,  shall  seem  also  cardinal  doctrines 
of  God,  weaving  the  wreath  of  His  glory,  and  issuing 
from  Plis  throne  to  man  in  garments  more  radiant  for 
earth  than  any,  which,  far  away  from  human  sense, 
flow  around  the  profound  mysteries  of  religion. 


ST.   PAUL 


SERMON    XII. 
ST.   PAUL. 


^  I  ^HE  immense  amount  of  attention  given,  within  re- 
cent  years,  to  the  relation  of  Paul  to  Christianity, 
warrants  us  in  drawing  some  inferences  regarding  that 
prominent  character,  at  least  justifies  ns  in  making 
him  a  theme  of  brief  remark.  It  will  be  years  yet 
before  the  position  of  St.  Paul  can  be  fully  defined, 
and  for  this  closing  up  of  accounts  none  of  us  can 
afford  to  wait.  It  is  the  privilege  of  each  year  to 
gather  up  the  approximations  of  truth  that  appear 
within  its  own  bounds,  and,  pending  the  final  de- 
cision, to  derive  what  cheer  or  help  it  may  from  the 
evidence  rendered  up  to  the  passing  hour.  As  in  the 
trial  of  some  great  personage  the  public  does  not 
await  in  solemn  silence  the  closing  of  the  case  and 
the  decision  of  the  court,  but  irresistibly  follows  each 
witness  and  weighs  the  testimony  each  hour,  so,  in 
the  progress  of  moral  inquiry,  one  cannot  sit  down 
and   wait   for   the   end,   but,  by   the    mind's   nature,   is 


220  ST.  PAUL. 

led  along  through  a  series  of  weights  and  measure- 
ments in  succeeding  days.  There  is  no  provision 
made  in  the  mind  for  perfect  repose.  It  is  com- 
manded us  by  nature  to  go  on.  Like  the  Wandering 
Jew,  in  the  fable,  we  must  march,  march,  march ! 

But  the  following  obligation  should  be  confessed, 
namely,  that  the  newer  the  inquiry,  the  greater  the 
number  of  facts  not  yet  brought  in,  the  greater  should 
be  the  modesty  and  charity  of  the  wondering  crowd, 
hoping,  longing,  fearing,  as  they  stand  around  the  wit- 
nesses and  the  box  of  the  accused.  Before  the  vast 
inquiries  now  opening  up  like  a  river  that  approaches 
the  sea  —  inquiries  rising  under  the  name  of  Darwin  or 
Huxley,  one  need  not  sit  down  in  silence,  but  may 
only  proceed  with  the  charity  and  humility  of  children 
diffident  in  their  helpless  youth.  If  all  inferences 
must  cease  until  inquiries  are  wholly  ended,  life  is 
reduced  to  a  sleep  that  needs  waking  only  once  in  a 
hundred  years. 

In  all  the  present  inquiry  about  St.  Paul,  there  is 
no  vital  idea  involved.  Hence,  nothing  is  to  be  feared, 
even  if  not  much  were  to  be  hoped.  How  far  he  dif- 
fered from  the  other  apostles,  how  far  he  was  designed 
of  God  to  give  shape  and  tone  to  the  church,  how  far 
he  has  done  so,  what  were  his  views,  what  his  genius, 
how  far  his  teachings  were  local,  how  far  universal  —  are 


ST.  PAUL.  221 

inquiries  that  involve  no  calamity,  and  hence  need  pro- 
duce no  passion,  no  trembling  among  Christians,  nor 
boastings  among  infidel  hearts.  The  inquiry  promises 
good  to  the  church  far  more  than  it  forebodes  any  evil. 
Paul  seems  a  power  only  half-weighed,  half-prized  in  the 
past.  The  new  attention  of  the  present  seems  to  be  the 
return  of  the  Christian  mind  to  a  better  estimate  of  its 
own  outfit  and  resources. 

An  age  afar  off  may  better  read  a  man  or  a  system 
"than  an  age  that  was  near,  because  it  may  bring  to  the 
task  a  more  congenial  mind  and  heart.  That  the  church 
has  reached  a  point  eighteen  centuries  away  from  St. 
Paul  is  no  proof  that  it  ever  exhausted,  or  even  fully 
studied,  the  details  of  the  doctrine,  or  spirit  of  the 
apostle.  It  often  happens  that  a  thousand  years  come 
between  an  event  and  any  careful  study  of  the  event. 
Men  are  diverted  by  some  new  issue,  and  then  by  some 
other  issue,  and  for  hundreds  of  years  make  no  sign  of 
return  to  any  objects  that  stood  by  their  starting  point. 
Thus  Aristotle  unfolded  the  inductive  philosophy;  but 
men  turned  away  from  it,  and  never  came  near  it  again 
until  in  the  far-off  days  of  Lord  Bacon.  Astronomy  flour- 
ished in  old  Egypt,  and  was  quite  complete  and  truth- 
ful ;  but  the  public  mind  deserted  it,  and  returned  not 
until  in  modern  periods.     Thus  men  are  always  making 


222  8T.  PAUL. 

long  and  great  wanderings,  and  great  and  beautiful  re- 
turns. 

In  Mexico  and  South  America,  there  are  old  mines 
of  silver  and  gold,  where,  hundreds  of  years  ago,  shafts 
were  sunk  and  furnaces  were  busy  separating  the  metal 
from  dust.  But  upspringing  war,  or  decay  of  industry, 
or  growth  of  vice,  drew  away  the  toilers,  and  left  the 
mines  to  the  silence  of  those  many  years.  Now,  the 
new  status  assumed  by  the  nineteenth  century  sends 
men  back  to  the  mines,  and  new  shafts  are  sunk,  and 
new  furnaces  blaze  in  the  long-deserted  valleys  of  the 
precious  ores.  In  religion,  the  ages  desert  rich  veins, 
and,  after  decay  has  hung  for  centuries  about  the  old 
shafts,  back  come  their  remote  children,  and,  with  double 
energy  and  intelligence,  make  the  gold  and  silver  distil 
from  the  old  earth.  They  return  with  better  science, 
and  secure  a  richer  yield. 

The  early  tendency  of  the  church  toward  tem- 
poral power,  drew  away  from  the  spirituality  of  Christ 
and  from  the  broad  republicanism  of  St.  Paul.  The 
fact  that  Peter  was  represented  as  having  the  keys, 
and  being  the  rock  upon  which  the  church  was 
founded,  drew  the  attention  of  the  early  half-barbar- 
ous church  toward  that  one  apostle,  and  for  fifteen 
hundred  years  Peter  was  the  ideal  genius  of  the 
Christian   establishment.       Not   the   absolute   Peter   of 


8T.  PAUL.  223 

the  Testament,  but  the  idealized  Peter  of  Romanism 
—  Peter  with  human  embellishment,  Peter  transformed 
into  a  colossus.  One  can  perceive  this  transformation 
and  enthronement  of  this  apostle,  not  only  in  the  fact 
that  he  was  made  pope  and  was  followed  bj  a  regu- 
lar succession,  but  even  in  the  sculpture  and  painting 
of  the  middle  ages  in  which  arts  Peter  always  enjoyed 
the  richest  colors  and  robes,  and  the  whitest  blocks  of 
marble.  Moses,  David,  Peter,  were  the  favorites  of  the 
artists. 

Innocently,  and  even  unconsciously,  St.  Paul  was 
left  under  a  cloud.  He  was  so  world-wide,  so  sepa- 
rated from  forms  and  from  localities,  that,  to  the 
half-civilized  ages  he  was  almost  invisible,  while  Peter 
with  keys  in  his  hand  and  with  the  suspicion  of  being 
a  rock  upon  which  a  church  could  be  built  for  the 
keys  to  lock  and  unlock,  became  very  visible  indeed. 
That  which  men  wish  to  see  is  always  the  most  visi- 
ble. With  the  ideas  that  Paul  held,  that  forms  were 
of  little  value,  that  neither  circumcision  nor  uncir- 
cumcision  availed,  that  neither  meat  or  no  meat, 
holy  days  or  no  holy  days,  contained  any  merit,  that 
nothing  was  of  any  value  except  the  new  creature, 
the  new  soul  within,  it  was  impossible  for  him  to  rise 
into  first  notice  and  first  love  in  an  age  to  which 
forms    had    been    the    dearest    and    best    thing.      The 


224  ST.  PAUL. 

world  was  oligarchic,  despotic,  aristocratic,  in  all  its 
education  and  hopes.  Empire  was  its  largest  idea. 
Peter,  supposed  to  be  a  rock  of  government,  and  sup- 
posed to  possess  keys,  was,  therefore,  worth  a  thousand 
times  more  than  St.  Paul,  who  was  an  exponent  of 
man  universal,  and  of  a  religion  of  only  the  heart. 
Peter  stood  for  empire,  Paul  for  the  soul. 

Such  an  age  did  not,  and  would  not,  calmly  weigh 
the  two  ideas,  the  Paul  and  Peter,  and  declare  Peter 
to  suit  and  delight  it  the  more.  It  would  simply 
grasp  Peter  by  its  instinct.  It  would  not  delibe- 
rately reject  Paul.  It  would  never  dream  of  his 
being  anything  valuable.  When  Indians  select  col- 
ored beads  and  ribbons  from  white  explorers,  they 
do  not  condemn  the  books,  the  laws,  the  schools  of 
the  white  race.  They  do  nothing  and  think  nothing 
on  the  subject.  They  grasp  by  instinct,  and  lay  hold 
upon  gaudy  colors  and  objects  of  sense.  So  the  early 
church  did  not  rationally  condemn  Paul ;  it  reached 
out  its  arms  by  instinct  and  grasped  the  man  that 
possessed  the  keys  of  power.  The  act  was  that  of  a 
child,  not  that  of  a  philosopher.  Accustomed  to  an 
empire,  it  grasped  for  a  sword  as  did  the  infant 
Achilles. 

In  this  unconscious  neglect,  Christ  Himself  suffered, 
not  a  little,  alon*)^  with  his  apostle.     It  was,  of  course. 


ST.  PAUL.  225 

impossible  for  any  age  wholly  to  overlook  Christ.  Paul 
was  one  of  twelve,  and  could  be  escaped;  but  Christ 
was  one  of  one.  He  was  alone.  But  what  was  denied 
the  age  in  the  power  to  ignore,  it  atoned  for  in  the 
power  to  interpret  badly.  Compelled  to  see  Christ,  it 
interpreted  Him  by  its  own  instinct,  and  made  of  Him 
a  regal  prince  anxious  to  grind  to  powder  many  enemies, 
and  to  exalt  a  few  friends.  The  raonarchic  instinct  that 
doomed  Paul  to  obscurity,  doomed  the  Christ  to  the 
similitude  of  a  rude  King,  rather  than  clothed  Him 
with  the  beauty  of  a  Savior.  And  thus  the  great  cloud, 
composed  of  keys  of  empire,  of  material  things,  of 
forms,  of  thrones,  of  princes  and  slaves,  of  pomp  and 
circumstance,  threw  its  shadow  far  down  the  valley  of 
human  life,  even  down  to  the  Pilgrims  and  Puritans. 

Paul  and  his  Master,  belonging  to  a  new  era,  to  one 
of  spirituality  and  human  equality,  it  was  necessary  for 
them  both  to  lie  in  partial  shadow  until  their  new  era 
should  come.  If  there  was  an  instinct  that  could  grasp 
the  literal  keys  and  local  empire,  so  there  would,  be  an 
instinct  that  would  grasp  a  new  life  and  a  kingdom  of 
man  universal.  Paul,  along  with  his  Savior,  must  wait 
for  this.  Fitted  for  a  spiritual  life,  they  must  stand 
still  until  the  pageant  of  Peter  had  passed  by. 

Another  great  shadow  followed  the  church.  It  was 
that  of  the  Mosaic  age.  Moses  and  David  were  grand 
15 


22H  ^7'.  PAUL. 

monai'chs.  Their  brilliant  power  and  severe  institu- 
tions have  haunted'  the  Christian  era  in  all  its  long- 
career.  Notv^ithstanding  the  sermons  of  Christ,  and 
the  terrible  eloquence  of  St.  Paul  about  the  dissolution 
of  the  Mosaic  economy,  the  empire  of  the  Hebrew  state 
was  so  deeply  in  harmony  with  the  taste  of  bishops  and 
popes,  that  the  laws  of  Moses  carried  awa}^  the  study 
and  love  that  belonged  to  the  Sei*mon  on  the  Mount, 
and  the  new  truths  of  the  Pauline  letters.  The  Mosaic 
age  died  slowly.  As  by  long  paths  ages  come,  by  long 
paths  they  depart.  This  shadow  of  Hebrew  power  fol- 
lowed the  church,  not  only  up  to  the  reformation  of 
Luther,  but  up  to  the  Pilgrim  Fathers,  who  still  wished 
to  seize  upon  some  country  as  Moses  had  seized  upon 
Palestine,  and  to  banish  Quakers  and  Huguenots,  as 
Moses  had  silenced  the  Philistines  and  Amorites. 

The  fact  that  the  Westminster  Assembly  passed 
its  laws  as  to  what  is  required  and  what  forbid- 
den in  the  Ten  Commandments,  and  neglected  to 
inquire  what  is  enjoined  and  what  forbidden  in  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount,  shows  that  the  empire  of  Moses 
was  still  intruding  itself  upon  the  presence  of  Christ. 
It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  in  all  these  long 
centuries  the  more  spiritual  and  liberal  ideas  of  St. 
Paul  lay  in  the  oblivion  of  neglect.  Full  of  universal 
love,  reckless  of  geographical  lines,  hostile  to  the  out- 


ST.  PAUL.  227 

ward,  devoted  to  the  new  life,  wholly  separate  from 
earthly  power  and  kings,  living  beyond  Moses  as  man- 
hood outranks  infancy,  and  rapt  in  the  vision  of  Jesus 
Christ,  Paul  was  compelled  to  wait  until  the  rise  of 
liberty  should  destroy  alike  the  scepter  of  Moses  and 
the  scepter  of  the  pope.  He  waited  the  time  to  lead 
mankind  to  a  religion  of  the  spirit,  and  to  the  Sermon 
on  the  mountain  side. 

Luther  unveiled  the  image  of  Paul.  That  hand 
lifted  some  of  the  heaviest  drapery.  A  thousand  mate- 
rial things  were  consumed  by  his  touch,  and  the  faith 
of  the  soul  in  Jesus  Christ  became  brilliantly  visible. 
Luther  thundered  against  penance  and  works  just  as 
Paul  thundered  against  the  outward  forms  of  the 
Jews;  and  against  popes  and  states  just  as  Paul  had 
declaimed  against  an  earthly  Jerusalem  and  the  caste 
of  the  Hebrews.  Luther  was  one  of  the  first  flowers 
of  the  seed  sown  by  the  Saint.  Then  followed  the 
wide  German  and  English  efflorescence.  In  such  mor- 
tals as  John  Wesley  and  Whitefield  and  Duff,  and 
almost  the  whole  school  of  those  men,  the  soul  of 
Paul  beams  forth  —  a  sun  that  had  been  long  clouded. 
They  are  all  the  abandonment  of  the  papal  idea,  and 
are  the  escape  from  the  shadow  of  the  Mosaic  age. 
They  are  a  reproduction  of  Christ ;  an  .acceptance  of 
the  church  of  Jesus  and  Paul. 


22^^  ST.  PAUL. 

Paul's  ideas,  those  of  democracy,  of  spirituality, 
instead  of  ceremony,  of  attachment  to  Jesus  Christ, 
were  too  great  for  the  lirst  fifteen  centuries.  They 
must  needs  lead  a  semi-life  until  the  spread  of  intelli- 
gence and  republicanism  should  help  abolish  rites,  and 
place  all  men  upon  one  level,  not  only  before  God, 
but,  what  is  more  difficult,  before  men.  An  age  will 
never  accept  anything  at  discord  with  itself.  An  aris- 
tocratic State  will  demand  aristocratic  religion,  schools 
and  amusements.  An  ignorant,  superstitious  country 
will  require  a  superstitious  literature  and  religion. 
The  stories  they  tell  their  children  will  be  about 
ghosts  and  wonders.  As  an  iron  magnet  will  gather 
up  nothing  but  the  dust  of  itself,  will  lift  nothing  but 
kindred  iron,  so  an  age  will  lay  hold  of  no  idea 
out  of  harmony  with  its  heart.  Monarchy  grasped 
Moses  and  St.  Peter,  and  let  fall  all  else.  Universal 
liberty  reaches  out  for  its  own  children  and  draws 
to  its  bosom  Christ  and  his  large -souled  apostle. 
The  development  that  has  plucked  iron  crowns  from 
the  foreheads  of  kings  has  plucked  them  from  the 
foreheads  of  priests,  and  has  given  us  not  only  a 
people's  government,  but  a  people's  Savior. 

But  for  Paul,  it  is  tliought  by  many  students  of 
history  that  Judaism  would  have  carried  its  circum- 
cision   and    seclusiveness    and    awful    despotism    right 


ST.  PAUL.  229 

forward  for  perhaps  a  thousand  years.  It  would  have 
wound  the  thorns  of  the  State  laws  around  the  body 
of  Christ,  a  wreath  of  pain  and  despair  around  a  sym- 
bol of  hope.  The  revolt  of  St.  Paul  weakened  the 
old  dispensation,  and  led  John  and  the  subsequent 
Christians  into  the  beginnings  of  a  new  career.  Paul's 
steady  light  abates  the  Mosaic  shadow. 

All  histor}^,  profane  and  sacred,  contains  proofs 
that  God  embodies  His  truth ,  in  some  human  heart, 
buries  it  there  and  commands  it  to  blossom  as  fast  as 
men  give  it  sunshine  enough,  and  only  so  fast.  In 
the  bosom  of  Moses  there  lay  ideas  beyond  his  people. 
They  laughed  them  and  him  to  scorn.  But  in  a  few 
centuries  the  Hebrew  commonwealth  grew  grand  all 
over  with  the  outgrowth  of  Mosaic  tniths.  IN^ot  grand 
compared  with  a  modem  ideal,  but  compared  with 
what  was  and  had  been.  In  the  outset  Moses  was 
too  great  for  his  people.  In  the  end  the  people  had 
caught  up  with  their  leader.  Xo  phenomenon  is  more 
frequent.  In  St.  Paul  was  buried  the  gospel  of  spirit- 
uality, of  humanity,  of  a  pure  heart,  and  of  Jesus 
Christ. 

The  first  idea  of  spirituality  sounded  the  death 
knell  of  forms.  Circumcision  or  uncircumcision  would 
avail  naught,  but  the  "  new  creature." 

The   second   idea,  "  all    humanity,"  abolished    popes 


280  8T.  PAUL. 

and  powers,  fagots  and  proscription,  the  exhaltation  of 
the  creed  of  Apollos  or  Cephas,  and  raised  a  slave  to 
the  rank  of  a  son  of  God. 

The  third  idea  of  a  pure  life  announced  the  end  of 
salvation  by  means  of  a  complex  machinery  of  doctrine 
and  the  dawn  of  a  new  era  of  honesty  and  piety. 

The  fourth  idea,  Jesus  Christ,  yesterday,  to-day  and 
forever,  cast  Christianity  into  the  form  of  a  personal 
friendship  and  love  for  the  Divine  Savior.  For  Paul 
to  live  was  Christ,  —  to  die,  gain,  because  death  sent 
him  to  Christ.  The  world  resolved  itself  into  the 
presence  of  the  Savior. 

In  Paul's  bosom,  more  than  in  any  other  human 
heart,  were  planted  these  ideas  —  four  rivers  in  the 
paradise  of  religion.  As  when  Moses  came  down  from 
the  mount  his  face  was  radiant  with  a  light  not  visi- 
ble to  those  around  him,  but  streaming  off  to  beat 
upon  shores  five  hundred  years  aw^ay,  as  Galileo  and 
Bacon  spoke  words  that  were  unheard  by  those  near- 
est, but  were  borne  by  some  strange  reverberation  to 
a  multitude  afar  off,  so  Paul,  more  divinely,  carried 
in  his  bosom  truth-germs  destined  to  blossom  far  away 
from  the  tomb  of  his  dust.  Perhaps  these  seeds  are 
now  disturbing  the  soil  of  this  century. 

Think  of  these  great  ideas.  Spirituality !  This  is 
nothing  else  than   a  divineness  of  soul,  a  rising  above 


8T.  PAUL.  ,  ^ol 

tilings  material,  gold  and  lands  and  raiment,  and  liv- 
ing for  the  soul  in  its  relations  to  time  and  eternity. 
God  is  called  a  spirit  because  there  are  characteristics 
in  all  material  things  which  separate  them  from  per- 
fection. The  word  spirit  is  the  ideal  for  the  everlast- 
ing. It  is  an  embodiment  of  love,  and  of  thought, 
and  of  truth,  and  of  life,  and  hence  is  felt  to  be  im- 
mortal. The  spiritual  man  is  hence  a  soul  not  wed- 
ded to  dust,  but  to  truth,  love  and  life.  To  be  spi- 
ritually minded  is  life.  In  Paul's  grand  religion  rites 
availed  nothing.  Circumcision,  baptism,  set  days,  sects 
of  Paul  and  Apollos,  were  all  of  no  moment  com- 
pared with  that  spiritual  cast  of  the  soul,  able,  like 
angels'  wings,  to  bear  man  to  immortality. 

Look  at  his  second  idea.  The  oneness  of  human- 
ity !  Oh  sublime  sentiment !  Had  Catharine  de 
Medici  known  it,  she  would  have  clasped  the  Hugue- 
nots to  her  bosom  and  said,  "I  love  you  all."  Had 
Calvin  felt  its  infinite  tenderness,  he  would  have 
thrown  his  arms  about  Servetus  and  said,  "  Live  and 
be  happy,  my  brother.  1  differ  with  you,  but  love 
you."  But  this  idea  must  await  the  birth  of  demo- 
cracy. 

Look  at  Paul's  third  idea.  A  new  life,  a  new  crea- 
ture !      It  will    be  the   development   of  this  idea  that 


232  ST.  PAUL. 

will  announce  the  dawn  of  a  perfect  civilization  and  a 
golden  age. 

The  church  has  tried  the  religion  of  dogmas.  The 
Scotch  churches  reached  a  creed  of  thousands  of  articles, 
but  that  church,  and  all  branches  of  all  churches,  have 
furnished  thousands  of  men  for  ever}^  branch  of  dis- 
honesty and  crime. 

The  men  that  commit  acts, of  crime  and  dishonor, 
the  men  who  commit  frauds  in  the  money  circles, 
come,  in  part,  from  the  multitude  that  carrj^  a  Cate- 
chism or  a  Book  of  Common  Prayer.  All  this  because 
religion  has  been  a  form  of  argument  rather  than  a 
shape  of  the  inner  life.  Oh  blessed  age  will  that  be 
when  a  holy  life  shall  be  the  aim  and  significance 
of  religion,  and  when  it  shall  be  universally  confessed 
that  unless  one  has  the  spirit  of  Christ  he  is  none 
of  His. 

But,  passing  all  these,  look  at  Paul's  fourth  passion. 
Love  for  Jesus  Christ!  I  shall  say  little  here  because 
the  measurement  of  words  fail. 

In  sounding  the  sea,  places  were  found  where  the 
lead  failed,  ^nd  for  hours  the  vessel  would  sail  with 
the  sounding  line  coiled  on  its  bow,  there  being  no  use 
for  it  in  the  awful  silence  beneath.  Paul's  attachment 
to  Jesus  Christ  is  beyond  our  cold,  feeble  measurement. 
For  him  to  live  was  Christ.     To  die  was  gain,  for  the 


ST.  PAUL.  233 

soul  joined  its  Friend.  As  children  live  for  the  happi- 
ness that  spring  and  summer  and  winter  promise  to 
their  glad  hearts ;  as  the}^  long  for  the  morning  because 
of  the  new  pleasure  it  will  bring;  as  for  them  to  live 
is  pleasure;  as  Pitt  and  Burke  and  Webster  lived  for 
country,  and  honor,  and  human  law;  as  for  them  to 
live  was  fame  and  greatness,  so  for  Paul  to  live  was 
Jesus  Christ.  He  slept  and  awoke  in  that  sacred  pre- 
possession. To  die  would  be  gain,  because  the  great 
golden  cloud  that  enveloped  him  did  not  belong  to 
earth,  but  was  only  the  outskirt  of  a  radiance  that  threw 
its  sheen  forward  from  the  vast  sea  of  endless  life. 

My  dear  friends,  measure  these  fours  ideas  of  Paul, 
and  behold  in  them  the  coming  glory  of  Christianity 
and  the  coming  blessedness  of  man.  Liberty  and  intel- 
ligence are  the  conditions  of  society  that  are  able  to 
accept  of  these  four  ideas  of  religion.  And  as  liberty 
and  intelligence  are  gradually  advancing,  so  these  es- 
sentials of  Christianity  are  rising  more  and  more  upon 
the  soul's  horizon.  Science  cannot  injure  them.  The 
welfare  of  society  will  make  men  always  return  to  them. 
They  will  always  prove  too  usetul  to  be  destroyed,  too 
truthful  to  be  denied,  too  comforting  in  life  and  in 
death  to  remain  unloved. 


FAITH. 


SEEMOIs^  XIII. 
FAITH. 


"  He  that  believeth  on  the  Son  hath  everlasting  life,  but  he 
that  believeth  not  the  Son  shall  not  see  life,  but  the  wrath  of 
God  abideth  on  him.'' — John  3  :  36 

nnHE  proposition  that  the  soul  is  saved  by  faith  in 
Christ   involves    the   two    inquiries,     (1)    What   is 
salvation?  and  (2)  What  is  faith? 

Salvation  must,  in  its  final  definition,  be  the  rescue 
of  the  soul  from  that  which  is  to  that  soul,  or  has 
been,  or  will  be,  a  ruin.  If  there  is  a  moral  condition 
that  may  be  designated  by  the  word  lost,  then  salva- 
tion is  the  escape  of  the  soul  from  that  condition. 
If  ignorance  is  a  loss  —  a  ruin  —  then  education  is  a 
salvation  in  that  field ;  if  poverty  is  a  lost  estate,  then 
riches  are  a  salvation  ;  if  mental  weakness  were  a  lost 
empire,  the  salvation  would  be  found  in  a  new  genius, 
a  new  culture.  By  such  illustration  we  may  perceive 
that  where  moral  depravit}^  makes  up  the  idea  of  lost 
soul^  moral  excellence  will  contain   what  is  meant  by 


2;^S  FAITU. 

salvation.  Salvation  of  man,  therefore,  must  be  man's 
transformation  from  a  sinful  to  a  holy  nature.  It  is  a 
return  of  that  which  was  lost.  A  legal  salvation  may 
be  a  preliminary  or  a  concomitant,  but  cannot,  in 
morals,  be  the  chief  salvation.  In  the  financial  de- 
partment of  life  a  debtor  can  be  saved  by  having  his 
debts  paid.  Condemned  to  death,  a  criminal  can  be 
saved  by  a  letter  of  pardon  having  upon  it  the  seal 
of  a  king ;  but  in  morals,  a  salvation  is  not  simply  a 
discharge  from  a  debt,  or  an  escape  from  a  penalty, 
but  a  change  in  the  spirit,  a  transition  from  vice  to 
virtue.  The  term,  therefore,  draws  its  deepest  inter- 
pretation from  the  term  lost.  If  man  is  lost  in 
wickedness,  he  is  found  again  in  a  perfection  of  moral 
character.  If  my  calamity  is  hunger,  food  is  my  re- 
lease ;  if  my  soul's  calamity  is  sin,  virtue  is  my  only 
rescue.  In  law  there  is  such  a  thing  as  technical 
danger  or  technical  safety.  In  the  dark  Kansas  days 
there  was  such  a  thing  as  "  constructive  treason,"  a 
treason  inferred  from  resemblance  to  real  treason ;  but 
there  can  be  no  such  thing  as  an  inferential  salvation, 
a  constructive  release,  a  technical  escape.  The  mean- 
ing of  the  term  is  to  be  determined  by  its  location. 
In  morals  salvation  is  spiritual  perfection.  The  for- 
giveness of  past  sins,  the  payment  of  a  moral  debt 
may   be    preliminaries,  or   attendant   events,  and   may, 


FAITH.  239 

by  their  importance,  aspire  to  the  name  of  a  rescue ; 
but  these  titles  are  the  gift  of  gratitude  rather  than 
of  fact,  for  after  a  man's  sins  are  all  forgiven  or 
atoned  for,  he  stands  forth  still  lost,  for  he  retains 
the  low  nature  that  produces  sins  and  made  necessary 
the  pardon  or  the  atonement.  If  to  us,  lost  in  a  wil- 
derness, without  a  sun,  or  a  star,  or  a  path  to  guide, 
there  comes  a  benevolent  hermit,  a  dear  mentor,  and 
leads  us  to  the  right  path,  and  sets  our  faces  home- 
ward, he  is  at  once  our  savior;  but  our  perfect 
salvation  will  come  from  our  going  that  path.  Our 
going  and  the  mentor  combine  in  the  escape ;  and 
jet  he  lives  in  memory  as  the  kind  savior  of  our 
bewildered  hearts. 

Pardon  and  atonement  form  parts  of  the  great  sal- 
vation, but  the  vast  idea  is  only  fully  met  and  satis- 
fied by  the  word  righteousness.  If  a  departure  from 
righteousness  was  man's  fall,  a  return  to  it  will 
be  his  safety,  the  heaven  of  the  soul.  If  this  be 
true,  then  Christ  is  a  Savior  in  so  far  as  He  helps 
man  back  to  that  high  place  from  which  he  fell  in 
this  career.  The  cross  is  only  an  essential  prelude  to 
th€  new  life.  The  sigh  of  the  suffering  life  and  death 
of  Jesus  was  only  the  solemn  introduction  to  a  great 
melody,  in  whose  music  should  be  combined  the  many 
strings  of  a  new  soul    and    a   new  career.      All  of  sin 


240  FAITH. 

was  then  finished,  all  of  holiness  was  then  begun. 
To  all  Christians  the  cross  should  not  be  the  only 
emblem  of  religion,  but  over  it  should  be  flung,  or 
around  it  wreathed  the  white  robe  of  virtue,  to  buy 
which  the  cross  was  reared,  and  the  life  lived,  and"  the 
death  died.  If  salvation  began  at  a  cross,  it  ended 
not  there.  Its  great  result  is  reached  only  in  the 
word  holiness,  for  if  in  the  image  of  God  man  was 
made,  to  that  image  Christ  leads  man  back. 

Moral  perfection  being  the  final  import  of  the  word 
salvation,  the  laith  that  saves  the  soul  will  need  to 
appear  on  the  arena  as  a  power  that  will  cast  its  pos- 
sessor forward  toward  this  perfection.  If  by  sin  man 
fell,  it  will  be  necessary  for  a  saving  doctrine  in  order 
to  merit  such  a  name,  that  it  shall  possess  some  power 
to  lead  the  heart  back  to  virtue,  and  it  should  do  this 
by  some  natural  law,  because  a  perpetual  miracle  may 
not  be  expected  unless  a  constant  force  acting  naturally 
is  impossible.  If  the  Creator  works  his  will  elsewhere 
by  means  of  regular  orders  of  sequence,  and  makes  the 
rain  and  sun  and  soil  throw  upward  all  the  grand 
flora  of  earth,  if  He  makes  the  great  central  sun  the 
fountain  of  heat  and  motion,  so  that  all  activity  falls 
down  from  it  in  the  great  flood  of  light,  so  in  the 
domain  of  religion  it  may  well  be  expected  that  God 
will  establish  some  faculty  of  the  soul  that  will  always 


FAITH.  241 

push  upward  its  moral  leaves  and  bloom,  or  cherish  it 
in  its  life-giving  warmth.  Religion  impresses  belief 
into  its  service,  because  belief  is  a  permanent  law  of 
intellectual  life.  Faith  is  this  perpetual  natural  force. 
It  is  not  an  arbitrary  basis  of  salvation  any  more  than 
sunlight  and  rain  are  an  arbitrary  basis  of  flowers. 
Faith  in  Christ  is  a  rich  soil  of  which  righteousness  is 
the  gorgeous  bloom.  Faith  is  not  imposed  upon  the 
human  family,  as  a  condition  of  heaven,  simply  by  the 
decree  of  God  passed  for  Christianity  alone,  a  despotic 
shibboleth  separating  souls  differing  only  in  the  ability 
or  non-ability  to  pronounce  consonants,  but  it  enters 
the  gospel  through  the  gate  of  reason  or  universal  law 
written  by  the  Creator;  a  law  that  belief  shall  be  the 
basis  of  all  religious  or  secular  life.  The  doctrines 
that  must  enter  into  the  soul's  welfare  are  based  upon 
the  reason  of  God,  and  hence  are  explicable  by  the 
reason  of  man.  In  the  pulpit's  fear  of  rationalism  it 
has  often  made  sad  havoc  of  its  supposed  outfit  of 
common  sense. 

Faith  is  the  drift  of  one's  heart  and  mind  in 
morals.  All  definitions  of  it  as  being  a  belief  in 
things  not  well  known,  or  a  belief  in  testimony,  or 
in  doctrines  hard  to  understand,  are  wasted  words,  for 
children,  to  whom  no  doctrine  is  diflicult.  and  with 
whom  all  is  perfectly  well  known  and  with  whom  dis- 
16 


242  FAITH. 

tinctioiis  are  impossible,  have  an  unbounded  faith  in 
God  and  in  Christ.  Faith  is  evidently  the  soul's 
attachment  to  a  being.  The  New  Testament  is  as 
wont  to  say  "  lovest  thou  me "  as  "  believest  thou " 
me.  It  sums  up  all  the  commandments  by  the  word 
"  love,"  and  neglects  the  word  ''  faith "  for  many  a 
page.  The  followers  of  Christ  so  loved  him,  so  gath- 
ered about  his  feet,  Magdalen-like,  bathing  them  with 
tears,  that  under  the  word  "  faith "  we  see  flying  along 
a  spiritual  sentiment,  an  angel  of  admiration  and  devo- 
tion. Faith,  then,  is  the  moral  drift  of  the  heart.  It 
is  an  inner  genius,  ever  growing,  ever  self-developing. 
It  is  an  impulse  of  the  soul,  combining  the  two  ele- 
ments of  a  firm  belief  and  a  deep  attachment.  It  is 
therefore  both  an  intellectual  act  and  a  sentiment ;  for 
as  when  you  look  out  upon  the  sea,  earth  or  sky,  in 
admiration  of  the  manifold  grandeur  unveiled,  the  eye 
and  ear  and  intellect  are  busy  gathering  up  the  scene, 
making  sudden  measurements  of  height  or  depth, 
sudden  perception  of  color  and  sound,  and  after  this 
rapid  ingathering  comes  the  sentiment  of  the  beautiful, 
a  deep  joy,  a  great  tone  of  heavenly  music  in  the  heart ; 
thus  Christian  faith  is  both  a  perception  and  a  senti- 
ment, for  gathering  up  the  phenomena  of  Christ's 
life  and  death,  reaching  out  toward  his  cross  and 
purity    and    paradise    and    eternal    life,    it   becomes    a 


FAITH.  243 

great  intellect  grasping  a  spiritual  landscape,  and  then 
in  the  feelings  that  follow,  of  joj,  forgiveness,  hope, 
repose,  it  becomes  a  sentiment  pervading  the  soul.  It 
thus  becomes  the  rational  foundation  of  a  new  life. 
When  the  English  poet,  standing  in  the  vale  of  Cham- 
ouni,  writes  his  hjmn  to  the  "  dread  mount :" 

"  Hast  thou  a  charm  to  stay  the  morning  star 
In  his  steep  course?     So  long  he  seems  to  pause 
On  thy  bald,  awful  head,  0  sovereign  Blanc ! 
The  Arne  and  Arveiron  at  thy  base 
Rave  ceaselessly ;  but  thou,  most  awful  form ! 
Risest  forth  from  thy  silent  sea  of  pines 
How  silently!     Around  thee  and  above 
Deep  is  the  air,  and  dark,  substantial,  black, 
An  ebon  mass ;  methinks  thou  piercest  it 
As  with  a  wedge !    But  when  I  look  again. 
It  is  thine  own  calm  home,  thy  crystal  shrine, 
Thy  habitation  from  eternity  ; " 

it  is  after  his  intellect  has  caught  the  outlines  of 
that  vast  dome  reaching  far  up  heavenward,  girdled 
with  pine  trees  and  crowned  with  clouds,  this  reli- 
gious heart  breaks  forth  in  its  sweet  address  to  God. 
Thus  faith  is  an  intellect  catching,  as  in  a  mirror,  the 
image  of  a  Savior  and  a  God,  and  an  eternal  realm ; 
and  then  instantly  it  becomes  a  passion  bursting  forth 
in  all  the  varied  beauty  of  a  happy  soul.  From  reason, 
or  the  law  of  God,  Christ  calls  into  service  this  mag- 


244  FAITH. 

nificent  mental  action  to  be  the  basis  of  his  new  para- 
dise. Infidelity  is  the  absence  of  this  perceptive  power. 
The  magnificent  scenery  of  religion  does  not  open  out 
before  it,  and  in  the  absence  of  this  ideal  world  there 
is  no  upspringing  of  any  religious  passion  or  sentiment ; 
and  a  vast  realm  is  blotted  from  the  soul.  It  Avas 
my  unhappiness  to  journey  not  long  since  near  a  little 
blind  girl,  riding  rapidly  through  a  magnificent  country. 
But  while  the  hills  and  forests  were  sweeping  by,  and 
while  the  sun  was  painting  all  the  western  horizon 
with  his  tints,  blended  in  infinite  delicacy,  this  beauti- 
ful child  sat  with  head  bowed  toward  the  floor,  the 
dear  heart  knowing  nothing  of  the  vast  pageantry  in 
the  heavens,  the  banners  of  red  and  gold  floating  over 
the  solemn  encampments  of  the  woods  and  the  ever- 
lasting hills.  She  was  cut  off  from  a  measureless  world. 
Infidelity  is  thus  the  closing  of  a  sense,  and  a  veiling 
of  a  beautiful  moral  realm ;  and  with  the  closing  of 
the  sense  comes  the  death  of  a  sentiment.  Infidelity 
is  the  eclipse  of  a  faculty  total  to  the  degree  of  the 
unbelief,  and  is  hence  not  so  much  an  insult  to  God 
as  a  natural  blight  of  the  heart.  Faith  is  the  discovery 
and  enjoyment  of  a  new  world  —  the  tendrils  by  which 
the  vine  grasps  the  oak.  Faith  saves  the  soul,  there- 
fore, not  by  any  arbitrary  decree,  not  by  any  form  of 
equivalents  or  compensation,  but  by  its  natural  action. 


FAITH.        '  245 

It  urges  the  soul  along  toward  virtue  just  as  the  ground 
presses  forward  its  imbedded  germs.  The  older  philo- 
sophers made  an  expression,  natura  naturans,  ''  nature 
acting  naturally,"  nature  in  its  daily  method.  In  the 
salvation  of  the  soul,  faith  is  "  nature  acting  naturally." 
There  is  nothing  arbitrary  in  the  decree.  If  there  were 
enough  truth  —  truth  of  morals  and  redemption  —  in 
the  Mohammedan  or  Buddhist  system  to  save  the  soul, 
faith  would  be  the  law  of  salvation  within  those  sys- 
tems. It  would  be  the  intellect  and  the  sentiment 
that  would  pass  through  those  systems,  gathering  up 
their  ideas  and  extracting  their  passion,  hence  the  Mo- 
hammedan has  surpassed  the  Christian  in  putting  to 
death  the  infidel.  Faith  comes  into  Christianity  thus 
not  by  an  exceptional  decree  of  God,  but  by  the  uni- 
versal law  of  nature.  The- mind  is  so  fashioned  that 
its  belief  is  always  working  out  its  salvation  or  destruc- 
tion. As  the  ear  is  always  leading  the  musician  for- 
ward toward  better  music,  toward  a  sweet  salvation 
from  the  rudeness  and  discords  of  yesterday,  so  faith  in 
Christ  is  always  an  angel  leading  the  spirit  onward, 
nearer  to  the  condition  that  knows  no  sin  or  sore 
temptation.  When  the  prophet  of  God  commanded 
!N^aaman  to  go  bathe  thrice  in  the  river  and  his  disease 
would  be  cured,  the  command  was  arbitrarv.  It  was  not 
an  instance  of  "nature  acting  naturally."  You  may  repair 


246  FAITH. 

to  the  same  river  now  in  sickness,  and  lo !  there  is  no 
power  in  its  stream.  But  when  the  Bible  says,  "  By 
faith  are  ye  saved,"  the  words  come  down  from  eter- 
nity, and  belong  to  the  human  race  in  any  century 
and  by  any  shore.  As  long  as  the  ear  may  allure  the 
spirit  along  toward  melody,  so  long  will  faith  unfold 
in  the  soul  a  deeper  and  more  perfect  salvation.  It  is 
nature,  not  toiling  among  rocks  and  oceans,  but  toiling 
in  the  soul ;  not  a  miracle,  but  a  perpetual  order  of 
sequence.  When  God  says  "  Believe  and  be  saved,"  it 
is  not  as  it  was  when  He  commanded  the  leader  Moses 
to  smite  a  rock  or  stretch  out  a  magic  rod  over  the 
streams  of  Egypt.  That  was  an  isolated  command. 
It  was  spoken  for  a  day.  When  the  command  of  faith 
was  spoken,  it  was  spoken  in  the  eternity  of  the  past 
for  the  endless  years  to  come.  As  the  idea  of  decrees 
does  not  origmate  in  Christianity  but  falls  into  it  from 
the  human  mind,  which  always  must  think  that  God 
has  decreed  all  things,  and  as  the  difficulty  of  free-will 
finds  its  origin  not  in  the  Bible  but  in  the  mind 
itself,  so  salvation  by  faith  is  not  a  creation  or  inven- 
tion of  the  New  Testament,  but  is  a  law  that  has 
pushed  its  way  up  into  the  Testament  from  the  realm 
w^ithout.  In  our  Oregon  coast  one  finds  a  hundred 
miles  inland  a  flood  beating  along  between  walls  of 
mountain,  bright,  wide,  deep  and  dark.     But  you  taste 


FAITH.  24:7 

the  water,  and  lo !  it  is  from  the  sea.  There  is  an 
ocean  far  westward,  and  this  is  only  a  channel  cut 
by  its  mighty  pulsations  in  the  ages  past.  That 
faith  seen  in  the  ]^ew  Testament  is  an  arm  of  a 
broader,  deeper  sea.  The  nature  of  the  human  mind, 
the  perpetual  laws  of  God,  are  a  great  outside  ocean, 
one  wave  of  which  has  worn  its  way  inward  toward 
the  manger  and  tomb  of  Bethlehem,  and  instead  of 
faith's  being  an  arbitrary  decree  passed  in  the  ISTew 
Testament,  it  was  the  basis  also  of  the  religion  of 
Socrates  or  Aurelius. 

In  the  transformation  of  the  soul,  two  things  are  at 
once  perceived  to  be  desirable :  (1)  a  new  form  of  in- 
dustry, and  (2)  a  new  form  of  being,  called  by  theolo- 
gians good  works^  and  a  new  heart.  But  not  aspiring 
to  the  honors  of  theologians,  let  us  not  affect  their 
terms,  but  content  ourselves  by  saying  that  our  safety 
demands  a  better  industry  and  a  better  soul.  We  must 
he  and  act  like  Christ.  Our  industry  in  traffic,  in  the 
arts,  in  the  pursuit  of  pleasure,  is  perhaps  sufficiently 
great ;  but  in  a  moral  world  capable  of  virtue  and  vice, 
life  and  death  perpetual,  an  activity  is  needed  of  a 
holier  nature.  If  this  world  were  only  a  workshop,  all 
might  remain  as  it  is ;  but  being  a  realm  of  mind  and 
heart,  capable  of  great  sin  and  great  sorrow,  capable  of 
great  virtue  and  blessedness,  and  being  a  vestibule  of 


24S  FAITH. 

immortal  life,  it  demands  an  industry  of  a  peculiar 
kind,  holy,  self-denying,  and  affectionate.  The  educa- 
tion and  christianization  of  the  world  are  accomplished 
by  the  toil  of  one  for  another.  Your  Christianity  is 
handed  to  you  by  your  friends  of  yesterday.  Your 
hymns  and  prayers,  your  music  and  your  church  struc- 
ture, your  taste,  your  language,  were  all  wrought  out 
for  you  by  loving  hearts  that  are  now  dead.  You  are 
the  work  of  the  past.  As  each  child  that  now  plays  in 
its  tenth  year,  speaking  a  language,  singing  a  song, 
revealing  a  refinement,  is  only  a  result  of  a  mother's 
care  and  solicitude,  so  the  Christianity  of  your  heart  or 
your  age  is  only  a  work  wrought  by  hands  gone  from 
earth  long  ago.  Each  new  life  is  born  out  of  past  works, 
as  a  rose's  bloom  is  the  color  of  the  light  that  fell  upon 
it  in  the  days  that  will  never  come  back.  Salvation, 
therefore,  is  the  result  of  a  holy  industry.  As  the 
coral  rocks,  rising  to  the  surface  of  the  tropic  sea,  are 
the  result  of  a  myriadic  life,  active  through  long  cen- 
turies, so  salvation  comes  to  its  grandeur  in  this  age  by 
help  of  myriadic  praying  and  singing  lips  buried  now 
beneath  time's  old  wave,  and  forgotten  in  its  oblivion. 
By  works  of  others  are  we  thus  saved.  The  impulse 
of  this  grand  Christian  industry  is,  faith  in  Christ  as 
the  soul's  Savior.  It  has  always  been  the  power  that 
has  carried  the  Pauls  over  the  ^gean,  or  the  pioneer 


FAITH.  249 

Methodist  to  the  wilds  of  America.  It  has  been  the 
earthquake  force  that  has  heaved  up  from  a  bitter  sea 
a  continent  of  unfading  flowers  and  perpetual  spring. 
Each  heart  busy  in  any  pursuit,  moves  by  a  natural  im- 
pulse. You  know  what  the  love  of  pleasures  does ;  and 
you  know  what  is  accomplished  by  what  the  Latin  poet 
calls  "  accursed  love  of  gold."  Beneath  all  activity  lies 
an  impulse,  a  motive.  Under  that  vast  movement  called 
salvation  —  that  movement  which  to-day  gathers  the 
Laplander  to  a  worship,  and  makes  the  Sandwich 
Islands  join  with  the  angels  in  sacred  song;  beneath 
that  movement  which  to-day  is  the  best  glory  of  all 
civilization,  under  this  vast  renewal  of  the  heart  —  lies 
faith  in  Christ,  the  impulse  of  all  this  profound  action. 
The  least  trace  of  infidelity  lessens  the  activity ;  unbelief 
brings  all  to  a  halt,  and  danms  the  soul,  not  by  arbi- 
trary decree,  but  bv  actually  arrestino:  the  best  flow  of 
its  life.  Unbelief  is  not  an  arbitrary  but  a  natural 
damnation.  Faith  in  the  Infinite  Father,  faith  in  Christ 
the  Savior,  faith  in  a  life  to  come,  lifts  the  world  up  as 
though  the  direct  arms  of  God  were  around  it  drawing 
it  toward  His  bosom.  It  is  God  in  a  law.  You  have 
seen,  out  in  the  summer  fields,  the  beautifully-woven 
spider's  web,  with  the  morning  dew  glittering  upon  it, 
as  though  its  threads  were  strung  with  beads  of  gold. 
But,  suddenly  it  trembles  in  every  delicate  fiber.     The 


250  FAITH. 

builder  of  it  —  the  little  owner  of  the  lace-work  —  has 
moved  out,  and,  quick  as  lightning,  all  the  labyrinth  of 
silk  vibrates  like  a  harp-string.  Society  is  spread  out 
like  this  spider-web.  Its  lace-work  lies  over  continents, 
and  the  decorations  of  mind  and  soul  hang  upon  it 
more  gorgeous  than  any  dew-drop  beads  of  gold.  Into 
this  tracery  are  woven  the  strings  of  every  heart  that 
has  lived  or  is  living.  But  it  is  a  poor  dead  fabric  so 
far.  But,  at  the  first  footfall  of  Christian  faith,  this 
vast  net-work  trembles  all  over  with  life,  and,  becom- 
ing as  it  were  harp-strings,  breaks  forth  into  a  divine 
melody.  Without  faith,  life  is  a  desert;  with  faith,  a 
garden  of  fruit  and  flowers. 

I  said  that  in  salvation  two  things  are  desirable,  a 
new  industry  and  a  new  being.  We  have  alluded  to 
the  new  industry  that  comes  by  faith.  The  idea  of  a 
new  being  will  need  only  a  moment's  thought.  You 
know  of  the  fabled  changes  of  the  chamelion,  that  it 
assumes  the  color  of  the  leaf  or  rock  on  which  it  sleeps ; 
but  it  is  no  fable  that  the  heart  assumes  the  color  of  the 
soul  nearest  to  it,  not  in  space,  but  in  love.  The 
Mohammedan  child  assumes  the  character  of  that 
mother  who  leads  it  to  look  to  the  sacred  city  and 
say,  Allah.  It  is  thus  the  world  through.  The  young 
men  of  Athens  who  in  love  gathered  about  the  feet 
of  Socrates,  were  changed  into  his  likeness,  and  he  was 


FAITH.  251 

condemned  to  death  that  the  public  transformation 
might  be  arrested.  Thus  are  we  all  modeled  by  some 
character  standing  above  us  in  reality  or  by  the  judg- 
ment of  our  aflection.  By  itself  alone  each  heart  is  a 
blank.  The  soul  attached  to  Jesus  Christ  by  this  faith, 
which  is  both  an  intellect  and  a  passion,  is  gradually 
transformed  into  His  likeness,  and  step  by  step  draws 
near  to  that  salvation  found  in  perfect  virtue.  In  the 
face  of  St.  John  and  St.  Paul  and  upon  the  foreheads 
of  the  Marys  one  may  easily  see  the  likeness  of  Jesus, 
not  in  full  splendor,  but  as  in  the  early  summer  morning 
one  may  see  the  coming  day  in  gentle  outline,  a  radiance 
in  the  East.  Thus  faith  is  perpetually  elaborating  a 
new  being,  is  separating  the  heart  from  its  yesterday 
of  sin,  and  bearing  it  toward  its  morrow  of  holiness,  a 
law  helped  into  action  by  a  miracle,  but  yet  a  law. 
1^0  other  grace  could  so  save  the  soul.  Charity  may  do 
much.  It  softens  the  heart  and  drags  along  a  train  of 
virtues;  but  it  is  limited  by  the  horizon  of  this  life. 
Yoltaire  and  Paine  were  both  beautiful  in  charity 
toward  the  poor,  but  that  virtue  seems  inadequate. 
And,  of  the  highest  form  of  charity  a  religious  faith 
is  the  best  cause,  and  hence  charity  must  take  the  place 
not  of  a  leader  but  of  one  that  is  led.  Even  penitence 
is  a  poor  '^  saving  grace "  compared  with  faith,  for 
penitence  is  not  a  perpetual  impulse  but  only  a  regret. 


252  .  FAITH. 

It  looks  downward.  It  is  not  a  grand  battle  cry,  but 
a  solemn  requiem,  not  a  Gloria  but  a  Miserere.  Repent- 
ance is  herself  only  the  accident  of  a  day.  When  sin 
ceases  it  shall  cease.  It  is  not  the  perpetual  impulse 
of  a  long  life.  Repentance  would  crush  the  soul  did  not 
faith  come  with  its  wide  horizon,  reaching  beyond  this 
life  and  revealing  a  world  where  there  will  be  no  sin 
and  no  regrets.  Faith  is  the  normal  state  of  a  sinless 
soul,  a  youth  permeating  all  the  hours  from  cradle  to 
grave.  Other  ideas  of  Christianity  fade  before  it. 
Baptism,  Arminianism,  Calvinism,  play  a  poor  part 
within  the  soul  compared  with  the  incessant  beating 
of  this  wave.  The  doctrines  of  penitence,  communion, 
and  charity  are  the  satellites  only  of  this  star,  and  are 
carried  around  by  this  great  planet  as  decorations  upon 
the  outer  border  of  her  garments.  As  our  central  sun 
is  equal  to  millions  of  such  worlds  as  this  earth,  as 
fifty  millions  of  our  moon  could  be  poured  into  it,  so 
faith  in  Jesus  is  a  central  sun  into  which  we  could 
empty  all  the  countless  articles  of  the  one  thousand 
sects.  It  is  said  that  in  some  of  the  Scotch  churches 
the  articles  of  study  and  belief  have  reached  the 
thousands,  but  into  the  one  doctrine  of  belief  in  Christ 
as  seen  in  St.  John  or  Magdalen  one  could  empty  all 
the   floating    star-dust   of    this   Scottish    heavens,    that 


FAITH.  253 

•dust-cloud  having  only  in  past  ages  concealed  this  Sun 
of  the  gospel  sky. 

Xot  only  is  the  individual  soul  borne  to  salvation 
by  this  influence,  but  by  it  all  the  conditions  and 
generations  of  men  are  cast  into  a  profound  unity  or 
brotherhood,  ^^ot  only  in  mathematics  is  it  true,  but 
also  in  spiritual  things,  that  things  similar  to  the  same 
things  are  similar  to  each  other.  The  world  looking 
up  to  Christ  and  becoming  like  Him  is  brought  into 
harmony  within  itself,  and  the  distinctions  of  wealth, 
of  class,  of  age,  of  nation,  of  sect,  are  obliterated  by 
the  great  spiritual  oneness  of  the  deepest  sentiment. 
Men  are  all  equal  when  something  raises  them  up 
above  the  distinctions  of  gold,  of  furniture,  of  office, 
and  places  them  amid  the  things  of  the  soul.  Brother- 
hood is  always  created  by  a  dominant  sentiment  which 
joins  in  the  great  and  annihilates  in  the  small.  A 
family  circle  in  a  palace  or  cottage,  is  cast  into  sweet 
unity  not  by  age,  for  one  is  silver-haired  and  one  is 
in  the  cradle  ;  not  by  learning,  for  one  is  in  middle 
life,  full  of  wisdom,  and  one  is  in  life's  morning,  full 
of  inexperience ;  not  by  genius,  for  one  is  brilliant, 
another  slow  of  thought ;  but  by  a  bond  of  love  that 
runs  through  all  hearts.  Home  is  thus  created  by  a 
single  feeling  of  love.  Thus  faith  in  Christ  obliterates 
the    accidental    distinctions    of    earth    and    makes    the 


254  FAITH. 

tears  of  a  slave  and  the  diadem  of  a  king  come  i«n 
one  instant  to  the  dust,  to  be  alike  forgiven  and  for- 
gotten. That  likeness  to  Christ  is  a  transfiguration  of 
earth,  so  that  slave  and  king  appear  in  the  same  shin- 
ing garments. 

St.  Pierre,  in  one  of  his  books,  describes  the  return  to 
France  of  a  ship  that  had  for  months  been  beating  about 
among  storms  in  the  southern  seas.  On  a  certain  morn- 
ing, land  was  cried  from  the  mast-head.  Passengers  and 
crew  gathered  upon  deck  in  suspense,  and  forgetting 
to  eat  or  even  fully  to  dress,  they  awaited  in  silence 
the  unveiling  of  the  coming  shore.  Yague  outlines 
were  seen  which  almost  broke  the  heart  by  their  equal 
resemblance  to  either  mountain  or  cloud.  After  hours 
that  seemed  days,  the  lookout  cried,  "France! 
France  !  It  is  France^  The  scene  that  followed 
illustrates  the  uniting  power  of  a  deep  sentiment ;  for 
in  that  hour  of  joy  all  took  each  other  by  the  hand. 
They  kissed  their  own  and  each  others'  children,  the 
storm-beaten  captain  shook  hands  with  his  crew,  and 
the  richest  gifts  passed  from  high  to  low.  All  the 
miserable  distinctions  of  humanity  faded  before  that 
blessed  vision  of  the  beloved  land.  Thus  the  great 
sentiment  of  faith  in  Jesus  Christ  has  power  to  oblit- 
erate poverty  or  sorrow,  rank  and  bondage,  shackles 
and  crowns,  and  to  reveal  a  human  race  standing  heart 


FAITH.  255 

to  heart.  They  come  up  to-day  from  all  paths  of  life; 
in  all  the  long  centm-ies  past,  from  all  nations  they 
come ;  and  in  the  future  of  this  world  the  nations  will 
come,  and  all  looking  out  on  a  far-off  coast,  their 
voice  has  been  and  shall  be  one,  but  it  is  not  —  ^'  It  is 
France,"  "  It  is  France,"  but  It  is  Heaven.  It  is 
Heaven.  The  storms  are  all  over,  and  we  all,  led  by 
faith  into  one  heart,  are  on  the  shores  of  Fatherland; 

With  joyful  eyes 

The  spirit  lies 

Beneath  the  walls  of  Paradise. 


ST.   JOHN 


SEEMOX  XIY. 
ST.  JOHN. 


r^  order  that  the  words  of  any  writer  may  be  held  in 
their  time  estimate,  it  is  desirable  that  as  much  as 
possible  be  known  of  the  mind  and  heart  uttering 
them.  The  sayings  of  a  Franklin  or  a  George  Fox 
are  reinforced  by  a  remembrance  of  their  simplicity 
and  integrity.  The  same  words  coming  from  a  thought- 
less, shallow  character,  and  from  a  sober,  deep  nature, 
seem  to  bear  within  them  the  littleness  of  the  one 
voice  or  the  greatness  of  the  other.  The  books  or 
orations,  or  poems  of  a  man  go  forward,  for  the  most 
part,  attended  by  his  character  or  reputation.  If  par- 
ticular words  were  spoken  by  a  hypocrite,  they  are 
worthless,  if  spoken  by  a  deeply  sincere  heart,  they 
are  valuable. 

On  account  of  this  close  association  of  a  man's 
words  with  his  character,  we  should  divide  our  time 
between  the  study  of  doctrines  and  of  the  men  who 
announce  them.      Such  a  course  is  due  the  words  and 


260  ST.  JOHN. 

the  author,  and  is  due  ourselves,  since  the  study  of  a 
character  unfolds  better  the  meaning  of  his  language 
to  our  own  mind. 

This  is  our  apology  for  asking  you  to-day  to  think, 
not  of  some  doctrine,  but  of  a  man.  A  more  pro- 
found respect  for  an  old  saint  may  win  from  your 
hearts  a  deeper  respect  for  his  ideas. 

John  is  one  of  the  most  influential  of  New  Testa- 
ment writers.  Others  may  declare  Paul  to  surpass 
him  in  affecting  religious  conduct  and  thought.  In 
the  absence  of  any  method  of  weighing  these  two 
great  apostles,  we  can  only  express  our  judgment,  that 
of  our  land  and  age  St.  John  is  the  better  exponent, 
and  hence,  in  its  confines,  the  more  influential.  Our 
century,  in  its  extreme  love  for  man,  and  in  its  hun- 
ger for  a  religion  of  sentiment,  seems  to  find  its  best 
exponent  in  the  disciple  who  gave  himself  up  to  a 
friendship  with  the  Savior,  and  whose  favorite  advice 
was,  "Children,  love  one  another."  There  have  been 
ages  not  far  away,  that  loved  most  the  Mosaic  writings. 
These  were  the  ages  of  severe  government,  and  of 
union  of  church  and  state.  There  have  been  also 
theological  times  which  have  given  most  of  their  study 
and  love  to  the  more  logical  writings  of  St.  Paul;  but 
coming  to  an  era  of  benevolence  and  equality,  and  an 
era  when  not  only  leading  minds  are  to  be  considered, 


ST.  JOHX.  261 

but  when  we  must  admit  into  the  word  man  all  the 
community  of  men,  women  and  children,  we  find  St. 
John  to  be  just  now  a  favorite  herald  between  God 
and  Society. 

TVhat  we  call  the  public  is  made  up  of  different 
elements  in  different  times.  Once  it  was  made  up  of 
royal  families,  and  then  the  plays  of  Skakspeare  were 
full  of  royal  pageantry.  Such  an  age  loved  most  the 
Old  Testament.  Passing  by  these  details,  when  we 
now  speak  of  society,  we  do  not  mean  the  learned 
nor  the  royal,  but  also  we  include  women,  children, 
and  the  choice  of  the  times  is  affected  by  the  choice  of 
all  these  new  hearts  and  voices.  The  public  demand, 
made  up  of  these  new  elements,  being  wider  and  more 
human  than  ever  before,  it  is  best  gratified  by  the 
affectionate  and  more  universal  words  of  St.  John  and 
his  Master.  John  carried  in  his  bosom  a  model  hu- 
man heart  —  a  heart  that  finds  more  parallels  in  the 
Xew  World  than  any  other  kind  of  character  could 
secure.  When  a  mind  is  only  philosophic  it  attracts 
only  philosophers ;  when  it  is  profound,  it  attracts 
only  the  deep-thinking ;  when  it  is  only  romantic,  it 
appeals  to  those  whose  feelings  surpass  their  judg- 
ment. But  St.  John  revealed  so  many  attributes  that 
he  draws  to-day  not  any  one  class  so  much  as  a  whole 
generation.      His   gospel   sets   out   in    a  deep  spirit  of 


262  ST.  JOHN. 


philosophy.  As  it  advances  it  passes  readily  to  argu- 
ment, to  simple  biography,  to  sentiment,  to  poetry, 
to  an  overflowing  love.  lie  was  thus  most  human, 
revealing  in  himself  all  the  cardinal  attributes  of  hu- 
manity. 

It  would  seem  that  the  parents  of  John  were  in 
such  temporal  circumstances  that  his  opportunities  for 
education  and  reading  were  as  good  as  any  in  the 
country.  That  he  availed  himself  of  his  opportunities 
is  evident  from  his  skill  in  the  Greek  language,  and 
from  his  partial  acquaintance  with  the  Greek  philoso- 
phy. His  gospel,  his  letters,  and  his  apocalypse  betray 
at  once  a  reader,  a  thinker  and  a  poet.  The  Revela- 
tion is  a  poem  just  like  that  of  Dante  or  Milton,  his 
gospel  is  a  selection  of  what  was  most  divine  and 
valuable  in  the  career  of  Christ. 

But  in  order  to  know  what  education  was  in  that 
day,  it  is  necessary  for  you  to  recall  the  splendid 
Greek  and  Roman  world  that  lay  around  this  gifted 
young  man.  The  Greek  language  is  still  almost  an 
unsurpassed  tongue.  Eighteen  hundred  years  have 
added  only  a  small  area  to  the  scope  of  that  vast 
speech.  There  is  scarcely  a  question  of  the  present 
day  discussed  that  was  not  reviewed  by  the  Greek 
thinkers  and  stowed  away  in  their  manuscripts.  Their 
essays   upon    education,    upon    health,    upon    art,   upon 


ST.  JOHN.  263 

amusements,  upon  war,  read  almost  as  though  they 
were  written  yesterday.  Even  that  question  which 
seems  our  own,  the  creation  and  property  of  this 
generation.  Whether  woman  should  vote  and  follow 
manly  pursuits,  is  all  fully  discussed  in  Plato's  "  Ideal 
Kepublic."  Remember  the  poetry  also  of  that  speech ; 
remember  that  nearly  all  the  modern  streams  seem  to 
have  flowed  down  from  that  Helicon,  and  you  can 
then  recall  the  circumstances  amid  which  the  apostle 
John  built  up  his  character  and  amassed  his  informa- 
tion. 

Opening  his  gospel,  we  behold  the  Greek  spirit  pass- 
ing over  to  the  service  of  the  Christian  religion  —  "  In 
the  beginning  was  the  Word."  That  Greek  term  which 
we  translate  Word  had  long  been  upon  the  tongues  of 
scholars.  Its  meaning  was  always  somewhat  hidden. 
It  seems  to  have  represented  the  Supreme  Being  out 
upon  an  errand  of  mercy,  or  creation,  as  light  flies  away 
from  the  sun.  It  is  that  Light  before  which  darkness 
flees ;  that  Life  before  which  death  retreats.  It  is  inde- 
finable and  inconceivable.  Yet,  John  saw  this  Logos 
entering  the  human  body  as  light  seems  to  rush  into 
the  eye  and  sound  into  the  ear.  It  dwelt  among  us, 
and  we  beheld  its  glory,  full  of  grace  and  truth. 

Matthew  and  Luke  begin  the  life  of  Jesus  at  the 
human  cradle.     Mark  omits  all  the  childhood,  and  opens 


264  ST.  JOHN. 


his  record  with  the  adult  Savior  coming  down  into 
Galilee.  These  three  were  simple  biographers  like  a 
Tacitus,  an  encyclopedist;  but  John,  reared  in  the 
school  of  mysticism  and  sentiment,  sweeps  right  by  the 
cradle  in  Bethlehem,  and  sees  the  Logos  come  down 
out  of  the  deep  eternity.  The  truth  is,  John's  gospel 
is  not  so  much  a  biography  as  an  essay,  such  as  has 
since  come  to  a  high  misson  in  literature.  He  did  not 
attempt  the  part  of  a  chronicler  so  much  as  of  a  devo- 
tee. Passing  by  the  details  that  had  been  given  by 
ordinary  historians,  he  came  to  a  more  delightful  task  — 
that  of  grouping  the  characteristics  of  Jesus  so  far  as 
they  moved  about  certain  centers,  and  so  far  as  they 
pleased  his  ow^n  devoted  spirit.  To  have  said  all  about 
the  Savior  would  have  consumed  all  the  life  of  John ; 
and,  as  he  states,  with  a  beautiful  extravagance,  the 
world  itself  would  not  have  contained  the  books.  It 
was  his  privilege  and  necessity  to  be  simply  eclectic,  and 
cull  flowers  from  a  field  too  vast  for  his  full  harvest- 
ing. In  such  treatises  as  Guizot's  Life  of  Calvin  and 
St.  Louis,  there  is  only  a  grouping  of  great  attributes 
or  great  events.  All  minor  events  are  passed  by,  not 
only  because  too  many  to  admit  of  mention,  but  because 
they  would  cumber  both  writer  and  reader,  and  conceal 
the  valuable  ideas.  In  order  for  us  to  perceive  any- 
thing well,  it  is  essential  that  other  objects  be  banished 


ST.  JOHN.  265 

from  our  sight,  that  the  soul  may  concentrate  itself 
upon  the  single  point.  The  poet  Cowper  would  not 
willingly  have  composed  his  verses  in  the  market-place, 
nor  could  Murillo  have  painted  his  spiritual  pieces  at 
the  city's  gate.  The  first  wish  of  the  soul  in  its  re- 
sponsible offices  in  life  is,  that  it  may  be  permitted  to 
concentrate  its  powers  upon  the  task  before  it,  for  the 
hour  or  for  life.  But  literature  also  is  an  art.  Indeed, 
all  the  parts  of  life  are  so  many  arts.  And  as  the  ora- 
tion or  the  essay  passes  by  the  multiplicity  of  detail, 
that  the  mind  may  enjoy  the  pleasure  and  profit  of  a 
single  clear  and  deep  view,  so  the  gospel  of  John 
brushes  away  the  details,  and  sets  forth  a  few  sublime 
truths  in  a  clear,  powerful  light.  Hence,  it  is  an  Essay 
upon  Christ,  like  Guizot's  sketch  of  St.  Louis,  rather 
than  a  biography  for  the  archives  of  the  historian. 

Christ  is  not  seen  in  childhood.  All  those  event- 
less years  of  the  fiesh  are  passed  by,  that  the  mind 
may  think  of  the  Logos  that  came  out  of  the  infinite 
beginning.  Joseph  and  Mary,  the  decree  that  all  the 
world  should  be  taxed,  the  manger,  the  wrath  of 
Herod  —  the  flight  into  Egypt,  all  fade  before  the  eye 
that  desires  to  see  nothing  else  but  a  great  Light 
coming  in  from  the   East   to   light  the  hearts  of  men. 

The  Jesus  of  St.  John  is  first  shown  to  us  with  a 
divine  spirit   descending  like  a  dove  upon  Him.      The 


206  ST.  JOHN. 

first  human  voice  that  greets  him  sounds  after  full 
manhood  has  come,  and  when  on  the  shores  of  the 
Jordan  the  words  are  uttered  — "  Behold  the  Lamb  of 
God  w^ho  taketh  away  the  sins  of  the  world." 

Out  of  John's  soul  we  see  issuing  these  ideas, 
Christ  the  Divine,  Christ  the  Savior,  Christ  the  Inti- 
mate Friend.  The  opening  chapter  reveals  the  divinity 
of  John's  Master,  and  the  ofiice  of  Savior  is  revealed 
in  every  page.  The  method  of  the  salvation  is  not 
detailed  as  fully  as  in  Paul's  letters,  but  the  fact  that 
Christ  is  the  Savior  of  all  who  shall  love  Him,  is  a 
brilliant  doctrine  running  through  the  book.  But  if 
there  be  one  idea  which  more  than  others  fills  up  this 
fourth  gospel,  it  is  that  the  Jesus  formed  and  forms 
an  inseparable  friendship  with  mortals,  and  bears  them 
up  to  heaven  as  a  mother  would  fiy  with  her  children 
from  storm  and  death.  He  becomes  one  with  man  as 
the  branch  is  united  to  the  vine.  As  He  and  the 
Father  are  bound  together,  so  are  He  and  human  life. 
He  goes  away  to  prepare  a  place  for  His  friends,  and 
He  will  come  again  and  receive  them  imto  Himself; 
that  where  Fie  is  there  they  may  be  also.  All  those 
final  remarks  and  prayers  which  so  instruct  and  cheer 
the  world,  come  to  us  through  the  medium  of  St. 
John,  because  John  did  not  act  as  a  biographer,  but 
as  an  essayist  and  as  a  final  reviewer  of  life.     The  Ser- 


ST.  JOHN.  267 

mon  upon  the  Mount  does  not  appear  in  the  fourth 
gospel,  because  John  was  not  repeating  the  biography 
of  Matthew  and  Luke,  but  was  taking  his  own  view  of 
Jesus  with  reference  to  a  few  salient  features  in  that 
wonderful  character. 

By  all  who  hold  to  the  idea  of  inspiration  it  is 
confessed  that  divine  influence  in  no  way  sets  aside  the 
disposition  or  personality  of  the  writer.  John  and 
Paul  and  James  all  looked  at  their  great  Master  just 
as  freely  and  independently  as  any  three  modern  minds 
would  look  upon  the  career  of  any  great  recent  charac- 
ter. Thus  when  the  career  of  Oliver  Cromwell  is 
sketched  by  Froude,  we  expect  the  landscape  to  differ 
from  the  one  painted  by  Carlyle,  and  if  there  were 
scores  of  lives  of  Cromwell,  we  should  have  scores  of 
pictures  all  truthful  and  valuable,  but  each  one  defective. 

It  could  not  have  been  otherwise  in  the  days  when 
the  life  of  the  Savior  was  delineated  by  those  who 
stood  near  him  in  his  earthly  years.  The  gospel  of  John 
is  Christ  as  seen  by  a  free  and  deeply  marked  individual, 
not  by  a  collector  of  facts,  but  by  a  gifted  genius  like 
a  Carlyle  or  a  Froude.  John's  natural  drift  was  toward 
mysticism.  He  did  not  love  the  first,  natural  facts. 
His  was  not  a  hard  mind  like  that  of  a  mathematician 
with  a  measuring  rod  in  his  hand,  nor  that  of  a  scientist 
weighing  and  dissolving  and  analyzing  a  grain  of  earth 


268  ST.  JOHN. 

or  ore.  What  be  loved  was  not  the  stones  and  clods 
at  his  feet,  but  the  illimitable  space  above  and  beyond 
the  dust  and  the  grass.  Coming  to  a  shore  which  a 
naturalist  would  investigate  geologically,  and  from 
which  a  child  would  pick  up  shells,  St.  John  would 
stand  and  look  far  away  into  the  haze  where  sea  and 
sky  meet  and  defy  mortals  to  separate  their  world  from 
infinity. 

All  around  human  life,  around  its  material,  around 
its  friendship,  its  love,  its  learning,  its  beautiful,  and 
its  life  itself,  there  is  a  remote  horizon  behind  which 
is  reposing  a  better  friendship,  a  better  education,  a 
better  beauty,  a  better  life,  a  circle  of  haze  where  earth 
and  sky  meet.  To  skip  over  the  clods  at  our  feet  and 
look  into  that  far-oif  horizon  in  which  the  angels  that 
Jacob  first  saw  betake  themselves,  this  is  Mysticism. 
It  was  necessary  that  John's  mind  should  behold  Christ 
only  in  this  transcendental  life. 

As  the  magnet  will  gather  up  only  its  own  kind 
of  dust,  as  it  will  not  regard  the  presence  of  brass  or 
gold  or  lead,  or  even  diamond  dust,  but  will  from  all 
this  scattered  richness  select  only  its  own  elements,  as 
if  loving  its  own  friends  best,  so  a  gifted  mind  will 
from  the  wide  universe  of  truth  gather  up  only  the 
children  of  its  own  heart,  all  else  will  be  passed  by, 
not  in  contempt,  but  because  there  is  something  dearer 


ST.  JOHN.  269 

beyond.  Had  Stuart  Mill  written  a  review  of  America, 
we  can  perceive  what  facts  he  would  have  passed  by, 
and  what  other  facts  would  have  been  deeply  looked 
into  by  that  far-seeing  soul.  The  condition  of  the  poor, 
the  freedom  and  hopes  of  woman,  the  public  honor  or 
dishonor,  the  marriage  relation,  the  education  of  our 
children,  the  motives  of  virtue,  are  themes  that  would 
have  employed  the  affection  and  powers  of  that  heart 
that  has  recently  become  dust.  Like  the  magnet  he 
would  have  grasped  all  objects  kindred  to  his  own 
being.     He  would  have  passed  by  religion. 

But  this  peculiar  relation  of  a  single  mind  to  the 
whole  truth  did  not  begin  in  the  nineteenth  century. 
It  began  when  the  human  race  began;  and  this  gave 
us  old  Homer  for  poetry,  and  old  Euclid  for  geometry. 
Out  of  such'  a  world  came  St.  John,  able  to  see  only 
all  that  was  ideal  and  tender  and  immortal  in  Jesus 
Christ.  Christ's  golden  promises  of  paradise,  his  sym- 
pathy with  men,  his  prayers  for  his  children,  his 
heavenly  mansions,  his  divinity,  his  light  and  life, 
at  once  filled  the  apostle's  mind,  and  became  the 
impulse  of  his  eloquence.  If  you  will  open  the  book 
of  Kevelation,  the  Apocalypse,  you  will  see  the  same 
John  painting  all  things  in  the  color  and  light  of 
his  own  specialized  character.  As  Dante  by  his  own 
peculiar  genius  and  limitations  could  not  treat  of  Italy, 


270  ST.  JOHN. 

her  religion,  her  pleasures,  her  sins,  her  heaven  and  hell, 
except  in  the  exalted  form  of  a  poem,  rolling  like  alter- 
nate music  and  thunder,  so  John  by  his  very  education 
and  nature  could  not  walk  with  his  Savior,  except 
upon  the  borders  of  cloud,  and  could  not  state  the 
doctrines  of  Christianity  except  in  the  symbolism  of 
the  Apocalypse.  If  a  doctrine  of  atonement  were  to 
be  expressed  in  didactic  form,  Paul  was  the  mind 
for  that  work ;  but  if  John  comes  to  the  task  of  unfold- 
ing: the  same  atonement,  he  beholds  some  white-robed 
angels  entering  paradise,  and  hears  a  voice  saying, 
"  These  are  they  who  have  come  up  from  great  tribu- 
lation, and  have  washed  their  robes  and  made  them 
white  in  the  blood  of  the  Lamb."  John  argued  little; 
he  simply  gazed.  With  him  religion  was  not  an  in- 
ference but  a  passion.  He  did  not  argue  for  a  future 
life  as  this  age  argues.  He  looked  up  and  saw  a  holy 
city  coming  down  from  God  out  of  heaven.  He  saw 
a  pure  river  of  water  of  life,  as  clear  as  crystal,  pro- 
ceeding out  of  the  throne  of  God  and  the  Lamb. 
The  Holy  Spirit  can  inspire  a  poet  as  easily  as  a 
historian.  There  are  no  prophecies  of  literal  events 
in  the  Apocalypse,  any  more  than  there  are  in 
Tasso  or  in  Tennyson  or  in  Whittier.  There  is  though 
a  poetic  soul  educated  in  the  Greek  school,  that  school 
which  gave  mankind  the  most  intense  poetry  and  the 


ST.  JOHN.  271 

deepest  tlioiiglit ;  such  a  soul,  seen  in  every  verse  of 
the  Apocalypse,  smiting  upon  the  facts  of  Christianity 
and  making  them  send  forth  music  like  a  lyre  swept  by 
a  skillful  hand.  What  Dante  was  to  Italy,  John  was 
to  Christianity,  only  in  John  the  divine  assisted  the 
human.  When  Paul  has  said  "  we  shall  all  appear  before 
the  judgment  seat  of  Christ,"  he  has  stated  a  cardinal 
truth  of  Christianity;  but  Avhen  this  idea  passes  from 
logical  Paul  to  the  mystical  John,  it  becomes  clothed 
with  its  richest  drapery,  and  amid  the  breaking  of 
seals  and  the  sounding  of  trumpets  and  rolling  thunders, 
a  vast  multitude  pours  along  toward  the  Great  Judge, 
and  beg  the  overhanging  rocks  and  mountains  to  cover 
them  from  his  wrath. 

The  difterence  between  the  gospel  of  Matthew  and 
the  apocalypse  of  John,  is  the  difference  between  a 
history  and  a  gallery  of  art  —  the  difference  between  a 
simple  sound  and  a  symphone.  Paul  said  the  gospel 
was  to  be  carried  to  every  nation,  just  as  language 
and  all  truth  are  carried;  but  in  the  brain  of  John 
this  idea  became  external,  and  was  seen  as  an  angel 
flying  over  the  earth,  saying  with  a  loud  voice,  "  Fear 
God  and  give  glory  to  him."  For  us  to  inquire  the 
meaning  of  the  seven  seals,  and  to  inquire  whether 
Pome  be  not  the  "  Babylon,"  would  be  for  us  to  seek 


272  ST.  JOHN. 

the  "  Deserted  Tillage "  of  Goldsmith  or  the  "  Beulah 
Land  "  of  John  Bnnyan. 

When  we  have  said  that  John  was  a  mystical  poet, 
we  have  not  said  that  he  was  less  truthful  than  writers 
more  prosaic.  Poetry  is  often  truth  carried  to  its 
highest  expression.  Prose  is  often  unable  to  express 
an  idea.  The  meaning  of  the  word  ''  God "  defies 
prose,  and  hence  we  resort  to  the  poetry  of  Coleridge 
or  Derzhaven. 

"  Oh  thou  eternal  one  whose  presence  bright." 

Prose  will  define  the  word  "  home "  for  you  in  its 
poor  fashion ;  but  if  you  wish  to  approach  nearer  the 
truth  you  must  fly  to  the  poetry  of  "  Home  Sweet 
Home,"  and  call  in  also  the  aid  of  the  still  better 
music.  Prose  will  inform  you  of  death,  but  if  you 
wish  to  perceive  more  of  the  reality  you  will  have  to 
fly  to  Bryant's  Thanatopsis  or  to  the  elegy  of  Gray 
in  the  solemn  churchyard. 

Poetry  is  the  transfiguration  of  such  ideas  as  are 
too  lofty  for  prose.  Prose  is  too  narrow  in  its  scope. 
It  can  present  the  truth  of  law,  of  science,  of  history, 
of  theology,  but  not  of  religion.  A  drum  will  beat  a 
simple,  sweet  sound,  and  keep  time  also,  but  when  the 
sound  would  assume  the  form  of  music,  it  demands 
the    many    strings    and    gradations    of    the    harp.      So 


ST.  JOHN.  273 

truth,  when  in  the  reahn  of  affection  or  hope  or  faith 
or  bliss,  asks  for  some  more  adequate  instrument,  it 
rises  to  the  magnificent  imagery  of  the  poetic,  and 
pours  out  there  a  revelation  of  itself  impossible  in  the 
vale  beneath. 

In  the  mysticism  and  imagination  of  this  beloved 
disciple,  I  behold,  therefore,  only  the  deepest  form  of 
inspiration.  In  his  grand,  outer  horizon  we  see  most 
clearly  the  tints,  at  least,  of  a  sun  that  is  shining  in  an 
eternal  world,  but  forbidden  of  God  to  throw  its  full 
light  across  the  valley  of  death.  The  gospel  of  John, 
the  letters  of  John,  the  apocalypse  of  John,  are  doubt- 
less the  highest  and  truest  form  of  religion  we  will  ever 
find  on  these  mortal  shores.  He,  of  all  the  sacred 
writers,  most  leads  us  upward  to  "where  the  earth  re- 
cedes and  disappears." 

In  the  natural  world,  we  perceive  that  the  Creator 
has  prepared  a  golden  bed  into  which,  every  evening, 
the  sun  sinks.  Oh !  how  the  classics  did  love  to  speak 
of  this  dreamy,  golden  couch.  But  God  loves  the 
human  heart  more  than  he  loves  the  stars.  Hence,  the 
Savior  came.  St.  John  points  out  to  us  the  beautiful 
horizon  where  the  soul  goes  down.  And  when  our 
friends  who  have  loved  God  die;  when  a  humble 
child  or  a  Christlike  statesman  ;  when  beautiful  youth 
or  venerable  manhood  —  bids  farewell  to  earth,  and  our 
18 


'214:  ,S7'.  JOHJV. 

tears  fall  upon  their  dust,  we  behold  best  in  John's  Gos- 
pel and  Dream  the  golden  couch  that  receives  into  its 
peace  these  stars  sinking  down  from  the  sky  of  this 
life. 


IMMORTAL   LIFE 


SERMON    XY. 
IMMORTAL  LIFE. 


"  For  he  is  not  a  God  of    the   dead   but   of   the   living,    for   all 
live  unto  him."  —  Luke  20  :  38. 

npHE  best  evidence  of  a  future  life  that  can  be 
reached  by  reason  alone  comes  from  a  contempla- 
tion of  God  rather  than  from  the  desires  or  nature  of 
man.  But  the  trust  in  immortality  comes  to  different 
persons  by  different  paths,  so  that  one  mind  cannot 
mark  out  for  another  the  best  path  to  this  great  hope. 
Were  the  evidences  of  a  future  existence  gathered  up 
in  the  form  and  quantity  of  all  times,  they  would 
form  a  library,  not  only  of  great  extent,  but  of  great 
variety  of  thought.  Philosophy,  poetry,  science  have 
their  paths  of  argument  in  this  great  field.  In  our 
thought,  this  morning,  we  need  not  be  limited  by  the 
special  argument  of  the  text,  but  may  come  to  that 
single  thought  after  having  expressed  some  general 
views  upon  the  interesting  topic.  One  reason  why 
we  may  go  at  last  for  our  hope  to  the  contemplation 


278  IMMORTAL  LIFE. 


of  God  is  found  in  the  fact  that  the  material  world 
comes  short  of  indicating,  in  any  manner,  the  per- 
petual life  of  man.  The  tree  which  in  winter  casts 
all  its  foliage;  the  flowers  which,  having  been  cut 
down  by  the  frost,  bud  again  in  the  spring,  are  only 
poetic  illustrations  of  a  human  resurrection,  but  do 
really  suggest  nothing  of  argument,  for  this  tree  and 
this  blossoming  do  not  die  in  this  falling  of  leaves. 
When,  in  subsequent  years,  the  tree  has  really  died 
and  entered  upon  its  decay,  as  man  dies  and  decays, 
it  sends  forth  no  more  leaves  ever  again.  Its  organ- 
ism dissolves  and  passes  into  the  life  of  other  forms 
of  organism.  Thus  nowhere  does  the  material  king- 
dom fling  out  a  hope  of  immortality  to  man  as  an 
individual,  but  only  to  man  as  a  class.  The  apple 
and  peach  which  ripened  last  autumn  will  never  ripen 
again,  and  hence  they  only  indicate  to  us  that  other 
fruits  will  adorn  our  fields  a  hundred  years  hence  as 
they  adorned  them  a  hundred  years  ago.  Thus  all 
organized  nature  indicates,  not  a  perpetual  life  for  the 
individual,  but  only  for  the  class. 

The  fact  that  the  material  world  argues  only  in 
favor  of  endless  succession  is  probably  a  cause  of  the 
infidelity  which  so  often  springs  up  from  a  devotion  to 
the  study  of  natural  science.  Mature  is  full  of  death 
for  all    individual    life  from  the  humblest  to  the  high- 


IMMORTAL  LIFE.  ^T^ 


est.  The  tree,  the  fish,  the  insect,  the  great  mammals 
dying  are  all  confessed  to  have  ceased  to  exist.  The 
species  rolls  on,  like  a  succession  of  waves  beating 
against  a  shore,  but  where  each  special  wave  comes 
but  once  in  the  long,  long  storm.  When  students  of 
nature  have  spent  life  amid  this  absolute  death  of 
the  individual  and  absolute  continuance  of  only  the 
species,  it  is  easy  for  many  of  them,  coming  to  look 
upon  man,  to  feel  that  he  too  is  only  an  organism  of 
material,  wonderful  indeed  and  superior,  but  yet  only 
dust  organized  for  a  brief  career.  It  is  not  my  design 
to  state  here  that  it  is  the  habit  of  scientific  minds 
calmly  to  reject  the  idea  of  a  second  life,  but  that  their 
studies  oppose  a  deep  love  for  or  any  confidence  in  the 
doctrine.  It  does  not  live  in  their  soul  as  it  lives  in 
the  feelings  of  those  who  study  the  spiritual  side  of 
the  universe  more  than  they  study  the  nature  which, 
in  their  sight,  is  always  resolving  itself  into  dust. 
The  number  of  persons  who  deny  that  there  is  any 
future  life  is  no  doubt  very  small,  for  no  one  can 
be  positive  regarding  any  point  of  which  he  simply 
knows  nothing,  but  the  number  of  those  who  do  not 
hold  this  doctrine  with  any  confidence  is,  I  fear,  pain- 
fully great.  It  is  to  be  inferred  not  so  much  from 
any  loud  words  as  from  their  silence  or  from  the  doubts 
with  which  the  grave  seems  clouded  when  they  venture 


280  IMMORTAL  LIFE. 


to  speak.  The  silence  of  lofty  intellects  comes  not 
always  from  an  aversion  to  topics  that  seem  too  reli- 
o'ioiis,  but  often  from  doubts  which  make  them  unwill- 
ing  to  associate  their  eloquence  with  what  may  be  only 
a  dream.  In  my  own  intercourse  with  my  fellow- 
men  I  have  found  the  naturalists  least  wedded  to 
the  idea  of  an  immortal  life,  and  that  the  best  friends 
of  the  hope  are  to  be  found  among  those  who  are  stu- 
dents of  justice  —  the  lawyer,  the  judge,  the  legis- 
lator, or  those  busy  in  philanthropy  or  education  — 
persons  living  in  presence  of  the  soul.  The  naturalist 
so  deeply  loves  and  studies  matter  in  all  its  wonderful 
combinations  between  the  ether  that  makes  worlds  and 
the  electricity  which  makes  a  dead  pulse  to  beat,  that 
to  him,  absorbed  in  such  phenomena  the  human  mind 
seems  only  a  flame  created  by  the  chemical  combus- 
tion of  food.  If  you  will  read  Dr.  Carpenter  upon  the 
brain,  you  will  for  the  hour  feel  that  man  is  nothing 
but  a  retort  into  which  various  elements  are  mingled 
and  heated,  until  a  poem  or  an  oratioji  or  an  anecdote 
is  the  result. 

In  all  this  analysis  of  vital  action  there  is  ipauch 
truth,  but  in  order  to  reach  the  best  conception  of 
man,  it  seems  best  to  begin  the  inquiry  from  another 
standpoint,  that  of  first  falling  in  love  with  the  idea 
of  soul,   in    love  with    the   theory   of  spirit, ,  and    then 


IMMORTAL  LIFE.  281 


from  that  prepossession  set  forth  to  investigate  the  par- 
ticular form  of  spirit  called  man.  If  it  is  lawful  for 
the  naturalist  to  give  his  affections  to  material  forms 
and  thus,  in  his  prejudice  for  his  world,  reach  the 
conclusion,  at  last,  that  mind  is  only  the  effervescence 
of  a  chemical  cauldron,  it  is  equally  lawful  for  you  and 
me  to  be  prepossessed  with  the  charms  of  spirit  and  to 
reach  the  feeling  that  flesh  is  only  the  chariot  in  which 
this  angel  of  life  rides  in  these  and  upon  other  shores. 
It  is  well  known  that  the  mind  shapes  its  material 
form.  The  face  of  a  Webster  is  nobler,  the  forehead 
higher,  the  eye  brighter,  and  the  brain  larger  than  are 
those  features  or  faculties  in  a  Sioux  Indian,  and  it  must 
be  so,  because  in  Webster  there  is  a  mind  and  soul 
which  have  for  two  thousand  years  been  busy  shaping 
the  tabernacle  of  dust.  In  order  to  believe  well  in  a 
future  beyond,  it  seems  essential  that  one  make  the 
assumption  of  spirit  a  starting-point,  and  then  the 
whole  material  world  becomes  its  servant,  or  its  arena, 
or  decoration ;  but  if,  with  Huxley  and  Darwin,  we 
begin  with  the  assumption  of  matter,  there  seems  noth- 
ing to  throw  us  over  across  the  dividing  ocean,  and 
we  must  remain  on  the  shore  of  dust,  and  hence  death ; 
for  move  to  and  fro  as  material  does  from  wild  rose  to 
full-leafed  rose,  from  ape  to  man,  it  always  brings  us 
at  last  only  to  dust.     There  is  no  immortal  rose,  how- 


282  IMMORTAL  LIFE. 


ever  full-leafed  it  may  become.  Death  is  its  destiny. 
To  get  over  this  tomb  of  roses  and  of  man  it  is  essen- 
tial that  a  spirit  be  assumed,  a  God,  an  essence  differing 
from  the  vital  action  of  the  heart  or  of  the  roots  of 
the  wild  flowers.  In  this  study  of  man,  after  we 
assume  that  he  possesses  a  spirit,  the  text  enters  with 
its  sinf]:le  thoui^^ht  that  God  is  not  a  God  of  dead 
souls,  but  of  living  ones.  There  is  no  manifest  reason 
for  supposing  a  soul  made  in  such  a  divine  image  to 
be  only  an  ephemeral  creature,  going  quickly  to  noth- 
ingness, thus  making  God  the  father  of  the  dead  rather 
than  of  the  living.  All  the  reasons  for  creating  such 
a  being  as  man  remain  for  continuing  his  existence. 
If  when  the  Creator  had  formed  such  a  universe  as 
lies  around  us  here,  of  which  our  system  is  as  a  grain 
of  sand  upon  an  infinite  shore,  He  finally  concluded 
to  make  man  a  race  to  inhabit  one  or  more  stars 
of  the  universe,  a  race  in  the  divine  image,  a  human 
life  of  a  few  years  would  seem  wholly  unworthy  of 
such  a  boundless  material  realm ;  for  we  cannot  master 
its  truths  nor  taste  its  happiness  in  any  three-score  year 
career.  Your  children  have  shown  their  divine  nature, 
have  revealed  their  intelligence,  have  spoken  a  few 
words,  have  rejoiced  in  a  few  spring  times,  and  have 
gone  hence,  leaving  you  heart-broken  over  a  speechless 
form.       A    brief  career   is    thus  not    in    harmonv    M'ith 


IMMORTAL  LIFE.  283 


the  immense  universe  in  which  this  life  begins  and 
of  which  man  is  unquestionably  the  highest  order  of 
being. 

That  man  is  of  the  highest  order  of  being  would 
appear  from  the  following  comparison  of  qualities: 

The  Creator  must  possess  the  following  attributes  — 
being,  wisdom,  power,  holiness,  justice,  goodness,  and 
truth.  A  srlance  at  man  reveals  at  once  the  same 
attributes,  and  hence  man  is  in  quality  the  highest 
order  of  created  beings.  But  if  man's  life  varies  from  a 
day  to  a  few  years  only,  then  he  has  eveiwthing  except 
being.  He  has  the  attributes  of  a  God,  and  the  arena 
of  a  biT-ite  or  an  insect.  The  magnificence  of  these 
attributes  ought  to  presuppose  a  magnificence  of  being. 
When  God  hung  out  the  planet  Jupiter  he  gave  it  an 
orbit  worthy  of  its  gigantic  proportions.  It  sweeps 
about  a  circle  whose  diameter  is  a  thousand  millions 
of  miles,  and  yet  it  traverses  all  this  long  journey  in 
the  light  and  verdure  of  perpetual  spring.  It  must 
be  that  when  God  made  the  soul  he  gave  it  an  orbit, 
a  being  commensurate  with  its  mental  and  spiritual 
endowments,  and  not  a  tomb  a  few  steps  from  its  cradle. 
The  immense  endowments  of  man  implies  an  immense 
arena  of  time;  and  coming  as  he  does  from  a  Creator 
who  is  inconceivable  as  to  his  immensity,  there  is  no 
more  reason  for  supposing  that  man  was  made  for  an 


284  IMMORTAL  LIFE. 


early  grave,  than  that  the  sun  or  the  planet  Jupiter 
was  made  simply  for  a  passing  hour.  Keason  teaches 
us  that  an  immense  equipment  for  life  presupposes  an 
immense  life,  xls  vast  foundations  indicate  a  palace  or 
temple,  expected  to  endure,  so  the  human  mind  and 
heart  reveal  foundations  that  were  not  laid  for  the 
pitching  of  a  tent,  but  for  a  fabric  worthy  of  the  deep 
and  wide  base. 

But  the  proportions  of  the  intellect  are  no  more 
significant  than  those  of  the  heart.  Indeed,  when  we 
perceive  the  imperfections  of  intellect,  of  logic,  and  of 
knowledge,  and  that  the  highest  learning  is  but  a 
step  along  the  infinite  path,  one  might  almost  accept 
of  eternal  death  as  being  the  best  end  of  such  intel- 
lectual despair,  but  of  the  heart  no  such  humiliating 
words  can  be  spoken.  Its  love  is  immense  though 
its  knowledge  and  logic  may  come  short.  The  love 
of  a  mother,  a  father,  our  love  of  friends,  of  nature, 
of  beauty,  this  is  all  genuine  and  free  from  the 
humility  attached  to  the  pursuit  of  truth.  Newton 
and  Locke  and  all  philosophers  may  mourn  tliat^  they 
come  so  far  short,  but  they  cannot  mourn  that  their 
heart's  love  came  short  of  reality.  The  mother,  the 
child  might  deplore  the  poor  progress  of  their  intellect, 
but  as  for  their  heart  it  rises  like,  an  unfettered  bird. 
Love    prefigures    eternity.      And    hence,   when   we  see 


IMMORTAL  LIFE.  285 


friends  bury  their  nearest  and  best  loved  ones  in  the 
very  morning  of  the  soul's  attachment,  we  feel  that 
earthly  love,  having  earth  only  for  its  arena,  is  a  sub- 
lime star  without  an  orbit  —  a  deep  foundation  with 
no  superstructure.  Human  love  with  no  basis  except 
this  life  is  a  wonderfully  fantastic  creation,  for  more 
than  three-fourths  of  the  objects  some  of  you  have 
loved  have  been  long  hidden  away  in  the  tomb.  Oh 
what  armies  of  loved  children  have  been  laid  into  the 
grave  out  of  mothers'  arms !  Oh  what  armies  of 
young  friends  stand  back  of  us  w^hose  faces  we  shall 
never  see  here,  and  which  we  never  saw  except  just 
long  enough  to  catch  a  burning  picture  in  our  heart, 
and  are  these  forever  gone?  Then  love  in  the  soul 
of  man  is  only  a  fantasy ;  this,  too,  with  man,  the  high- 
est order  of  being  conceivable  next  to  God ;  and  this, 
too,  in  a  world  full  of  God's  immensity  and  tender- 
ness. I  shall  not  believe  that  God  is  vast  in  the  orbit 
and  bulk  and  numbers  of  the  stars,  and  is  small  only 
in  the  gifts  and  arena  of  the  spirit. 

Astronomers  tell  us  that  the  motion  of  the  earth 
has  not  probably  varied  in  a  million  years.  They 
have  no  figures  for  expressing  the  age  of  the  sun. 
All  is  wonderful  except  man.  Endowed  with  a  mind 
like  Deity,  endowed  with  a  heart  like  the  divine  heart, 
he    is    doomed    to    a    grave    before   his    powers    have 


286  IMMORTAL  LIFE. 


reached  even  a  partial  action.  Thirty-three  years 
sweeps  away  all  this  human  pageant.  If  this  be  true 
there  is  nothing  so  imperishable  as  a  stone,  there  is 
nothing  so  contemptible  as  a  divine  soul.  The  oak 
tree  will  live  a  thousand  years,  and  thus  will  see  thirty 
generations  of  men  pass  away.  There  are  oaks  in 
England  in  whose  shade  children  have  played,  and 
kings  and  queens  have  paused  to  rest,  in  the  fifteen 
hundred  years  gone.  The  white  elephants  of  India 
live  a  century,  thus  surpassing  that  being  whom  we 
behold  endowed  with  reason,  memory,  hope,  love,  and 
religion.  If  man  has  no  life  beyond,  then  we  per- 
ceive this  being  taken  away  from  the  highest  order  of 
earth,  and  bestowed  upon  the  oak  of  the  forest,  or  the 
dumb  brute  of  India.  This  reason  must  deny  and 
must  feel  that  man  must  surpass  the  brute  world  by  a 
life  upon  another  shore.  There  is  to  be  found  an 
arena  of  time  adequate  to  the  lofty  endowment  of 
mind  and  heart  which  man  possesses. 

The  resurrection  of  the  soul  may  be  inferred  not 
only  from  the  grand  quality  of  its  attributes  but  from 
their  method  of  growth.  If  man  came  into  this  life 
with  full  powers,  and  for  seventy  years  shone  with  full 
light  all  the  while  without  any  loss,  then  the  mind 
might  be  perplexed,  but  when  we  observe  that  through 
all  this  life  the  mind  only  begins  to  acquire  wisdom  and 


IMMORTAL  LIFE.  28' 


knowledge  and  virtue,  and  linds  its  best  days  only  when 
the  hair  begins  to  whiten  for  the  grave,  we  must 
conclude  that  if  the  tomb  be  the  end  then  there  is 
too  much  preparation,  and  too  little  for  which  to  prepare, 
an  education  without  a  destiny.  At  the  lowest  estimate 
twenty-five  years  of  life  are  consumed  in  building  up 
a  common  education  and  stable  character ;  but  the 
average  of  human  life  is  thirty-three  years.  These  facts 
resolve  human  life  into  a  grand  preparation  for  some- 
thing that  is  never  to  take  place,  a  long  temptation, 
and  study,  and  repentance,  and  prayer,  and  self-sacrifice 
in  order  that  it  may  become  annihilated  in  the  grave. 
Life  is  by  all  confessed  to  be  a  school,  for  we  perceive 
our  fellow-men  to  be  undergoing  great  transformations, 
and  we  all  experience  great  transformations  in  its  long 
bright  or  weary  hours.  But  if  this  school  opens  its  door 
at  last  upon  death,  and  graduates  its  children  into  the 
tomb  alone,  what  a  mockery  is  our  long  and  for  the 
most  part  sorrowful  tuition.  In  order  for  reason  to 
reach  such  a  destiny  of  man  it  is  necessary  to  divest  the 
Creator  not  only  of  kindness  but  also  of  the  honor  of 
intelligence.  The  quality  of  the  human  attributes  and 
the  long  period  demanded  by  their  development  here, 
point  out  therefore  a  life  of  broader  extent  than  is  to 
be  seen  in  these  three-score  years.  The  reasons  for 
man's  existence  here  all  continue  in  favor  of  an  exist- 


288  IMMORTAL   LIFE. 


ence  hereafter.  If  the  work  of  this  life  is  to  build  up 
character  there  should  be  some  place  for  that  character 
to  repair  to  better  than  the  sepulcher.  I  do  not  believe 
that  such  a  soul  as  that  of  St.  Paul,  woven  out  of  life's 
love  and  sorrows,  ran  out  in  the  blood  that  drenched  the 
block  at  Kome,  where  his  eyes  closed  in  death.  I  do 
not  believe  that  God  made  any  of  these  sublime  human 
characters  simply  for  a  burial  either  in  the  tomb  of  a 
country  churchyard  or  in  the  Abbey  of  Westminster. 
There  is  nothing  in  the  nature  of  man  that  justifies 
any  other  outlook  than  that  broad  open  sky  called 
immortality. 

Did  you  ever  take  your  pencil  and  estimate  how 
many  human  beings  a  single  star  or  planet  might  sup- 
port ?  If  you  will  do  so,  you  will  find  that  there  is  one 
of  our  planets  that  would  support  upon  its  bosom  all 
the  inhabitants  that  have  ever  lived  upon  the  earth  in 
its  historic  six  thousand  years.  With  a  population  only 
as  dense  as  that  of  France,  our  largest  planet  would 
furnish  homes  for  all  the  beings  that  have  ever  lived 
on  our  small  but  beautiful  star.  But  what  is  one  planet 
to  the  millions  of  worlds  that  deck  the  sky?  Earth  is 
the  humblest  of  stars.  Oh,  man  !  God's  universe  has  as 
much  room  for  his  children  all  living,  as  for  his  children 
all  dead ;  as  much  room  for  their  life  and  love  and  joy 
as  for  their  dust.     And  this  brings  us  at  last  to  the  full 


IMMORTAL  LIFE.  289 


lio:lit  of  the  text.  Moviuo;  about  for  the  hour  in  its  twi- 
light,  we  emerge  now  into  its  fuller,  sweeter  beam. 
"  God  is  not  a  God  of  the  dead,  but  of  the  living,  for 
all  live  unto  Him."  God  is  not  a  being  rich  in  the 
tombs  of  those  whom  He  once  loved,  and  who  once 
loved  Him,  rich  in  sepulchers  of  Abraham,  Paul,  John, 
all  the  Marjs,  Luther,  and  the  Weslejs.  He  is  not  a 
God  of  a  vast  world  covered  with  graves  of  noble  men 
and  dear  children.  Oh,  no  !  all  live  unto  Him.  Death 
is  nothing  else  than  the  limit  of  human  gazing.  Man 
sees  a  cloud  not  visible  to  the  Almighty.  The  river  of 
death  rolls  not  before  the  eye  of  God,  but  the  gaze  of 
man.  "  Unto  Him  all  live."  The  theory  of  man's 
mortality  makes  God  the  owner  of  a  great  burial-place, 
which  offers  no  hymn,  no  prayer,  no  praise,  to  a  God 
of  love  and  wisdom  —  nothing  but  silence  and  solitude. 
Earth  is  only  a  tomb;  and  if  there  be  no  heaven,  God 
is  the  divine  owner  of  a  vast  burying-ground.  For  you 
remember  what  our  great  Bryant  sung  for  us  in  our 
childhood.     He  says,  earth  is  nothing  but  a  sepulcher: 

"  The  Mils, 
Rock-ribbed  and  ancient  as  the  sun,  the  vales 
Stretching  in  pensive  quietness  between, 
The  venerable  woods,  rivers  that  move 
In  majesty,  and  the  complaining  brooks 
That  make  the  meadows  green,  and  poured  round  all 
19 


290  IMMORTAL  LIFE. 

Old  ocean's  gray  and  melancholy  waste, 
Are  but  the  solemn  decorations  all 
Of  the  great  tomb  of  man.     The  golden  sun. 
The  planets,  all  the  infinite  host  of  heaven 
Are  shining  on  the  sad  abodes  of  death 
Through  the  still  lapse  of  ages.     All  that  tread 
The  globe  are  but  a  handful  to  the  tribes 
That  slumber  in  its  bosom.     Take  the  wings 
Of  morning  and  the  Barcan  desert  pierce. 
Or  lose  thyself  in  the  continuous  woods. 
Where  rolls  the  Oregon,  and  hears  no  sound 
Save  his  own  dashing,  yet  the  dead  are  there." 


JS'ow,  my  friends,  all  tins  desolation,  all  this  rain 
of  human  tears,  and  sighing  of  autumnal  winds,  is  a 
solemnity  that  confines  its  sorrow  to  man  alone.  As 
for  God,  earth  is  not  a  vast  tomb,  but  a  vast  mount 
of  resurrection  and  transfiguration. 

Out  of  human  tombs  the  soul  is  rising  like  a  sil- 
very vapor  from  the  dark  sea.  To  man,  living  upon 
the  low  surface  of  the  earth,  the  sun  goes  down  and 
disappears;  but  this  comes  to  pass  from  the  fact  that 
man's  horizon  is  a  small  circle  fringed  by  a  range  of 
mountains  or  a  sea.  But  could  man  dwell  in  the 
upper  ether  he  would  perceive  that  the  sun  does  not 
go  down,  but  pours  forth  an  ocean  of  light  forever. 
Thus  death  is  a  human  horizon,  where  the  soul  seems 
to  go  down  to   the  gaze  of  mortals.     Dark  mountains 


IMMORTAL  LIFE.  291 


and  a  vale  of  shadows  intervene;  but  to  God,  far 
above  us,  looking  upon  all  his  stars,  and  all  his  angels, 
and  the  children  of  men,  the  horizon  which  we  call 
death  disappears,  and  the  soul  shines  always.  Unto 
Him  all  live. 


::i:M  ;.i:vM.i)  '^li 


•Mn';i::-;^;:!W;ii!;i;« 


UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS-URBANA 

252SW64T  C001 

TRUTHS  FOR  TO-DAY  CHICAGO 


3  0112  025275717 


